


The Entire Train to Busan Movie but Every Zombie is Replaced by a Furry

by johnwick



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: ?? i guess lol, Apocalypse, Crack, F/F, Horror, M/M, cbx are women btw!!!!, just shitposting in fic form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12027747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnwick/pseuds/johnwick
Summary: Ten people and their puppy overlord hop onto a train. You won’t BELIEVE what happens next! [GONE SEXUAL] [GONE WRONG]





	The Entire Train to Busan Movie but Every Zombie is Replaced by a Furry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crownjules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownjules/gifts).



> One day, I’m chilling out maxing relaxing at school minding my own business, eating a chicken parma and chips, and I say, out loud: “Hey man. Imagine an apocalypse au fic. But with furries.” And my friend right, she goes, “swell. Bet you can’t write more than 10,000 words about this furpocalypse though.” So, I’m sitting there, sweet chilli mayo chip dip on my titties, and I say ‘challenge fucking accepted’. And so uhhhhh here we are.
> 
> And also, thank you to Chrissy and Jules for looking over this.
> 
> ALSO FULL DISCLAIMER: This is just a fun fic, please do not take it seriously! I mean no offence to _any_ parties. Enjoy~

**** **Prologue**

 

There is nothing particularly significant about the early Monday morning that greets Mr Lee Sooman. There are no clouds draped over the sky as far as he could see, which is not unusual to him, and the half-sun peeking behind the gigantic trees has a dimmed, other-worldly glow. Nothing about today seems special or spectacular. It's just a regular Monday morning and Mr Lee would have it no other way.

 

Mr Lee nods once at the gentle breeze that caresses the wrinkled skin of his face, like he does every morning before work, because as he firmly believes that, to keep the peace between humans and nature is to acknowledge and appreciate it. So like every Monday morning, he chirps a cheery 'hello!' to his flower bed, bends down to observe an ant colony with innocent curiosity, brushes the tips of his fingers along dew drops on shivering leaves, and finally twirls his keys and unlocks the monster truck he’s aptly named Tronald.

 

Eco-friendly, of course. She’s a gentle creature. Mr Lee would have it no other way.

 

Mr Lee carefully pulls out of his driveway (he likes to think that he is very good at pulling out), and begins his journey to work; a modest lawyer in the very modest SM & Sons law firm, the sister building to SM Entertainment. Business had died down as of late, but Mr Lee can never predict when another star idol decides they want to terminate their contracts early. Well, makes good business for him.

 

Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the closest route for him to take from his bungalow to the firm would be through a lush forest, with trees so tall the sun barely shines through the leaves, and with vines so low they brush atop the roof of his Tronald. Ever the nature enthusiast, the Monday morning scenery is a refreshing start to his day.

 

It seemed like any normal Monday morning; except, that it wasn’t. And Mr Lee finds out the weird way.

 

His vehicle is hailed to a stop almost as soon as he exits onto the main road and merges with the other vehicles, as numerous men in orange hazmat suits gesture wildly for him to slow down. They were oddly reminiscent of the little orange dancing men from the chocolate movie.

 

There are signs affixed to one side of the road, where hidden behind a large shrub, lies a lab of some sort. Mr Lee has never before paid it any mind as it was not harming him (and his extensive research showed that it was not harming the environment either). But his attention is brought to it today, of all days, as the scene before him depicts the large building to have been quarantined; what look like federal bureau tapes line tree bark to tree bark, effectively closing off the area, while masses of men in black and men in orange scour the land with their mouths guarded by masks.

 

He briefly wonders what the raucous is all about on this Monday morning, but his wandering thoughts are stopped along with his monster truck when one of the hazmat clad men approaches him.

 

"EXCUSE. ME. SIR." the man pulls up his mask and lets it hand behind his neck as he screams up at Mr Lee over the sound of the engine. His neck is stretched almost all the way up, resting on the mask, so he could see the driver’s face behind the wheel of the elevated vehicle. "WE ARE SORRY ABOUT THIS INCONVENIENCE. WE WILL HAVE YOU MOVING ALONG SHORTLY."

 

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING PORTLY?" Mr Lee shouts back, taking offence to the rude comment from the random stranger. His physique was a sensitive topic.

 

“NO, NO. SHORTLY. I SAID YOU WILL BE ABLE TO GET GOING SOON.”

 

“OH.” Mr Lee nods in understanding. Then, the anger rises inside him again. “WHO’RE YOU CALLING A BUFFOON?!”

 

“NO. NO.” The man in orange sighs with his entire body. “HOW ABOUT YOU TURN OFF YOUR VEHICLE, SIR.”

 

“HOW CAN YOU EVEN SEE MY CLAVICLE FROM DOWN THERE? I’M WEARING A THREE PIECE SUIT.”

 

“TURN. OFF. THE. ENGINE.”

 

“WAIT, WAIT,” Mr Lee holds his hands up before turning the ignition off and stopping Tronald completely. She sputters, then shuts down. “Let me turn my engine off.”

 

The man in orange sighs again, and this time, Mr Lee hears it very clearly.

 

With the absence of his lady’s loud groaning, he can truly sense the urgency in the sounds around him; people bustling around in a hurry, a siren going off in the near distance, and the man beside his door tapping his foot impatiently.

 

“As I was saying, Sir,” he sighs. “We are truly sorry about this inconvenience. There’s… no need to worry, this area will just be quarantined for the time being.”

 

“How am I supposed to come home then?” Mr Lee wonders aloud. He hates taking the city route.

 

“We’re very sorry, Sir. It’s just a safety measure.”

 

Not too far off, Mr Lee hears a series of screams.

 

“YEP.” The orange man pronounces in a clear and cheery tone. “Absolutely nothing to worry about.”

 

“May I know why exactly this area is being quarantined?”

 

“It’s not up to me to disclose,” the man states plainly. “But what I can say is that it’s something to do with a virus.” Almost immediately after he said that, the man rushes to add: “n-nothing too serious. We’re working to keep it contained.”

 

Another round of screams are heard, followed by puffs of saturated smoke wafting up into the sky. The smell of what he thinks can only be burning sulfur reaches his nose. He wrinkles it in displeasure. Very strange…

 

“EVERYTHING is under control.”

 

“Hmm,” Mr Lee hums in thought. He nods decisively. “I trust you, good man."

 

The man in the hazmat suit sighs again, this time in relief and partly, what looks to be disbelief. But Mr Lee really does trust this man's judgment. There is something about working in a law firm all day every day, with stacks of papers thrust on his desk and verbal beat downs in court rooms, that festers a weariness towards men in black suits. It's alright, Mr Lee thinks with an amicable smile to his comrade in neon, orange is the new black anyway.

 

The man smiles at him, tight-lipped and awkward. The silence between them now is a bit stifling, with the two men not having much else to say. There's an occasional bang in the background coming from the large establishment next to them, but the hazmat man has deemed the lawyer too oblivious to bother shielding the problem with excuses and reassurances. There doesn't need to be anything said, and he's about to leave and tend to other vehicles when Mr Lee speaks up.

 

"So... you like... cheese?"

 

"Uh..?"

 

The car in front of Mr Lee's starts its engine and begins moving, saving the other from thinking up an answer, even if he does in fact, like cheese. He smiles again, and gestures for Mr Lee to start up and start moving, which thankfully, the man understands in one go.

 

"THIS WAS A LOVELY CHAT."

 

"SURE." The man widens his eyes mockingly. "HAVE A LOVELY DAY, SIR."

 

"OH NO, NO." Mr Lee chuckles, tentatively stepping on the gas, "I'M NOT GAY. BUT THANK YOU FOR THE OFFER."

 

The man in the hazmat suit stands and watches with an open mouth and furrowed brows as the lawyer and his noisy monster truck disappear slowly, more confused than he had ever been before, and carrying the weight of confusion on him with the wink he had received. He shrugs, and goes back to waving his arms at the new vehicles that drive by, relieved to see no more monster trucks and men in suits behind the wheel.

 

The chaos in the back erupts in tenfold, screams getting louder and filled with Panic! at the mess behind him. He smells a fire, and praying internally that it isn't large, or toxic, continues doing his job. There's truly very little he actually knows about the entire situation himself, so he hopes the government officials do what they were hired to do and get on damage control.

 

A series of screams echo once again from the labs, and he hurriedly puts his mask back on to protect himself from the gathering fumes. He sniffles and sniffs under his mask, a lot more aggressively than he expects to, and his body starts to get warm.

 

 

 

 

A _moose_.

 

As a lawyer, a law abiding citizen, and a decent man, Mr Lee has never been in a hit and run before. Granted, this was only a moose, but he thinks the consequences are still too dire for him to be caught next to its carcass. Nature will reap its revenge if he stayed for even a second too long.

 

He didn’t realise South Korea even had moose.

 

That was besides the point. He pays his respects to the road kill, because of course he has to – it goes without saying, but just as he is about to hop back into Tronald, he notices something. His eye catches on a tufts of blue, a bright cerulean shade sticking out like patchwork on the moose's rear. Throwing caution to the smog-thick wind, Mr Lee kneels down beside the animal, careful of avoiding the splotches of splattered blood on tar, and runs his hands on the strange fur.

 

 _Soft_...

 

Was it dyed? He thinks to himself. But then, why would they dye its fur? And who would they be? And why is there a moose on the road in the first place? And why this shade of blue?

 

A handful of the blue comes off in a clump. Mr Lee stands up quickly, ignoring the cramp in his calf from getting up too soon as he stumbles back to Tronald in haste. He'd been next to the dead thing for too long. He could take responsibility for it from the labs (with whom he is very suspicious about at this point), from the law, from the government, from anyone... From anyone, but mother nature.

 

He sits down in the driver’s seat and takes a moment to himself, taking a few squeezes from his stress ball and a few pokes of his DIY slime to calm himself down from the sight of moose blood on his hood and windshield. Mr Lee exhales.

 

Today has been one weird Monday morning.

 

He starts Tronald up again, already exhausted by the amount of times he's had to turn her on and off, and continues on his way to work. _Finally_ , he thinks. It's taken him too long to finally get going again, and the thought of paperwork waiting for him like an impatient housewife on his desk does not please him in the slightest. It would be doubled by now, thanks to his tardiness.

 

Such is life.

 

Mr Lee drives by relatively slowly, taking his time now to admire the countryside before he is forced to embrace the urbanised concrete jungle where his dreams had long since been dead. He rolls down the shutter and breathes in the clearing air, and exhales the soothing calm that it gives him. No amount of DIY slime could replace this feeling. With the wind in his short cropped grey hair and slightly ruffling his wrinkles, he is back to embracing this Monday morning.

 

Mr Lee has never been late to work, but he’s never one to rush either. Then again, he is not one to have made so many stops in one morning, but it seems like today is just one unusual day, with one unusual event after another.

 

He starts humming a new tune he believes is called Transformer, by SM Entertainment’s star idol Oh Sehun, whose rapidly growing popularity in South Korea, and soon the world as well, is simply astonishing. Mr Lee hums thoughtfully and adoringly, his mind becoming distracted by the young prodigy and how devastating it would be to be on the opposing side if they ever lost him. He is so lost in his thoughts of Oh Sehun, he almost misses it.

 

Mr Lee is just cruising along slowly when he notices the large creature. Covered in lilac hair all over it’s body, it stands tall, taller than anything Mr Lee has ever seen in his life. He slows down to observe it some more. The creature’s eyes are large and expressionless, reminding him of a cartoon animal that has somehow found its way into the real world. The eyes don’t follow his movement, which is eerie in itself, but the creature’s head does, and Mr Lee feels intensely violated.

 

He finally speeds up and drives away, taking an occasional glance back in his rearview mirror only to see the thing still standing by the side of the road, head turned towards him.

 

At first, he entertained the thought of it being one of those roadside clowns he’s seen so much about on social media. He hadn’t realised that the trend had caught on in South Korea; but then again, a lot of trends seem to come to us a few months, or even years, too late, he nods to himself with a thoughtful dab.

 

Then, another thought comes to him.

 

Could it be? Did he just get a first hand account of Bigfoot?

 

No, that couldn’t possibly be it. That creature had looked far too empty inside, with its big beady eyes and protruding nose. But then again, no one in his time had actually witnessed Bigfoot. If he wasn't already late, Mr Lee would have turned back around to snap a few pictures. But as it so happens, Mr Lee is a busy man, and he lets nature do its thing. He shrugs and hits the gas.

 

Nature sure is as mysterious, as it is wonderful.

 

Mr Lee would have it no other way.

 

 

 

 

The moose left behind on the tar begins to twitch. From the bottom of its hooves, to the tip of its one good antler, the moose begins to crack its bones and stretch its limbs, before standing up in slow motion. A larger area of its body has been taken over by the bluish fur, with barely visible brown underneath. Parts of its body have become engorged, muscles swollen to double their size.

 

It stands up on its hind legs, protracting to its full body length as if emerging from a cocoon. It extends to double it’s height, muscular in a way that is not moose-like, and hairy in a way that is not moose-like either. Its eyes have started to glass over, growing in size as it takes a glance first down at the dried up blood, then at the tire marks disappearing into the city.

 

It’s smiling. _Why is it smiling?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**The Beginning**

 

Jongin fists his hair by the handful, hands grasping both sides of his head as he tries not to yell out or curse in frustration. He hears his supervisor yap continuously, not necessarily actually listening to him. His mind has been stuck on a single point that was made, one that brought his present to a standstill; that being, that all his life’s work, all his company’s work, was for naught.

 

“You mean to say,” Jongin talks to his hands, now brought down to his mouth. He tries to stop his voice from cracking. “That the fans’ continuous streaming doesn’t actually count?”

 

His supervisor, the ever-brooding, cross-bearing Choi SIwon nods in disdain. “Not when MNet have been trying to sabotage us for years. What did you expect? Of course other stations are going to follow in their slithery, slimy footsteps. And not to mention–”

 

Jongin drowns him out as Siwon launches into another tangent, mostly about how 'MNet are lying, cheating, dirty, venomous snakes' but not actually offering him any insightful solutions as to  how he, as the manager of arguably the most important idol in all of South Korea, could deal with the issue at hand. That issue being, all of Sehun's life's work now standing to be dismantled at the hands of a few jealous, skeevy individuals at broadcasting companies. Okay, so he sees why Siwon likes to rant.

 

And what perfect timing too to this whole mess.

 

"-those fucking bastar-"

 

"Okay, okay," Jongin interrupts, shushing Siwon's passionate spouting mid-swear. "I need you to give me something I can actually work with here, Siwon. It's Sehun's birthday tomorrow and he has to know we've got his back."

 

Siwon frowns. "Jongin. Sehun doesn't know about this."

 

What.

 

"What?!" Jongin shouts. As if his outburst was to be expected, Siwon doesn't even bother shushing him. "What do you mean he doesn't know?"

 

"Well..." Siwon's eyes widen, and voice drags as if he is talking to someone who is hard of hearing. "I did only just tell you all of this."

 

"Oh. Right. Yes, of course."

 

"But also, the company thinks we shouldn't be telling him."

 

Jongin's eyes squint suspiciously. "Why not? With all due respect sir, they're his fucking numbers. It's his career on the line here. Why doesn't he get to have a part in any of its deciding factors?"

 

"Well, you see," Siwon sidesteps around Jongin's desk before plopping his ass on the edge. He's directly in front of Jongin now, with Jongin's eyes being levelled with his crotch. Uncomfortable is an understatement. Jongin puts all his focus into the patterned tie Siwon is wearing instead. It's ugly. "It's like this, Jongin. SM Entertainment have already lost three very valuable stars."

 

"Four, if you count Jessic-"

 

"Oh the girls don't matter so much to us," Siwon says with a dismissive wave of his hand. Jongin reels slightly at the casual offhand sexism but is shut off before he can even say anything. "If we tell Sehun he is potentially about to get knocked off and lose his spot-"

 

"Wait, lose his spot? What do you mean?"

 

"Being number one is very important to us, Jongin. You should know this."

 

"But he still makes sales," Jongin protests, "physical and digital. And he has like, five Daesangs?"

 

"Yes but is that the same as a Billboard social award?"

 

The tone is partly patronising and wholly condescending and Jongin doesn't even try to argue. Siwon continues, interpreting the silence as submission.

 

"As I was saying, the last time one of our idols got wind of something like this, we had to hire Lee Sooman from legal."

 

"The guy who drives the monster truck?"

 

"The monster truck he's named Tronald. Full name: Tronald Dump. Can you believe it?" Siwon adds. He makes a circular motion with his finger next to his temple as he mouths 'coocoo'. "He manages to always cost us a shit ton of money. I mean, he doubled our offer when he found out Luhan used biodegradable bags."

 

"Well-"

 

"No." Siwon points the same finger at him in a mildly menacing way. "None from you. You are not going to make us have to use Lee Sooman."

 

"I was just going to suggest firing Mr Lee then, but okay."

 

"Oh," Siwon stops. The expression that falls on his face looks like he's just realised he has been eating KitKats wrong his entire life, but he shakes it off within a second. "That's not the problem here. You're not to tell Sehun anything that'll get us in another lawsuit. You’re not going to give him any ideas that will make him want to leave our company. Or you'll be packing your bags up too."

 

"Fine, fine." He concedes reluctantly. When it comes to someone he really cares about, he'll find some way to keep them happy, even if it means taking one hit today. If it's to make sure their career doesn't fall apart thanks to a shitty company and shitty broadcasting stations, and a shitty fucking system, Jongin will take this L and shove it up Siwon's some other time. So for now, he’ll have to wait until the time when it will actually count.

 

“And I don't mean firing you, boy, I mean ruining your life.”

 

“I get it Siwon, we’ve been over this same threat at induction.”

 

“Good.” He pats Jongin once on the back, before he gets up and out of his face, crotch and all. “Glad we could come to an understanding.”

 

An awkward sort of silence drops between them as Jongin waits for his supervisor to leave, but then a previously bugging thought ebbs it’s way into his conscience.

 

“Wait, sir, I need your help,” Jongin blurts out as if Siwon had never threatened to fire him. Siwon raises a bushy brow expectantly, and Jongin feels his throat clog up like a bathroom drain.

 

“Yes?”

 

"So," Jongin mumbles with a nervous purse of his lips. He clears is throat and tries his attempt at being breezy. "This is kind of random, and totally unrelated to work but like, say, like, hypothetically or whatever, you like, _like_ someone, or something. Like no big deal, you know, just like in the romantic styles."

 

SIwon narrows his eyes in a way that doesn't help Jongin's breeziness whatsoever.

 

"And say, like," Jongin pauses to laugh in an obviously not fake way, "it's their birthday soon. Coming up soon... Soon."

 

"Okay...?"

 

"Not tomorrow, exactly. I mean I suppose it could be, this is all very hypothetical, but say they have a birthday coming up soon. What would you get them if you wanted to woo them?"

 

Siwon pauses with one hand in the doorway and thinks. He looks like he is thinking rather hard, and Jongin hopes he isn't about to realise who Jongin is really talking about.

 

"I would get her a nice little crucifix," he nods to himself. “Nothing too showy. Just enough to embrace her devoutness.”

 

It’s Jongin’s turn to raise his brow. _Ironic_ , he thinks to himself, because Siwon is the actual devil.

 

“That’s hot,” Siwon mumbles to himself as an afterthought.

 

And then he leaves.

 

“Helpful...” Jongin mutters to the empty doorway.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday evening has Jongin rushing to the dorms, the sweat trickling down his neck making his silk shirt stick to his back. He got held up at work, trying to assess the damage control he’d have to oversee over the upcoming weeks thanks to MNet. Thanks to all that, along with Siwon hovering over him like he was waiting for him to fuck up, Jongin has not had time to think of what to get Sehun for his birthday.

 

And no way in hell was he about to get him a _crucifix_. Not when Sehun is a practicing atheist.

 

After a round of frantic googling, tweeting to his twenty-something followers, Jongin finally found the perfect present for Sehun: something, according to the net, every twenty-three year old needs.

 

Jongin straightens his tie at the door, takes a calming breath, and walks in.

 

"You didn't even come to my performance today," Sehun hisses as a greeting from the floor, throwing a balled up sock in his direction. Jongin dodges it easily. “Why am I even surprised?”

 

“What- Sehun. What, uh, are you doing on the floor?”

 

The idol squints up at him before balling up his other sock and throwing it. Jongin lets it hit him in the chest this time. “Not that it’s really any of your business, but I’m finishing this 1000-piece puzzle of the Queen’s bust.”

 

Jongin feels a steady fondness blooming in his chest at the look of concentration on Sehun’s face. A pink tongue brushes against rosy lips absent-mindedly, and Jongin swears his heart stops for a Whole Moment.

 

“Oh, that’s–“

 

“It was a birthday present from Henry,” Sehun continues, his brows furrowing in frustration when two of the pieces don’t cooperate. “I told him I love Queen, y’know – like the band – but he must have misunderstood. Oh well. It’s still quite thoughtful.”

 

Jongin deflates like a balloon at the mention of the name: the name of his arch nemesis. Something in Sehun’s tone sounds suspiciously like a trap too.

 

“I see…”

 

“And where have you been?” Sehun looks up sharply.

 

Ah, there it is. Under Sehun’s strong gaze, and even stronger eyebrows, Jongin feels like an insect that whizzed right into a venus fly trap.

 

“I- well.” Jongin contemplates. He is under strict orders not to tell Sehun about what was going on with the broadcasting stations, but it felt wrong to lie. After a brief pause reassessing the situation and his entire life, he finally settles for: “I was at a meeting.”

 

“Oh, ‘I wAS aT A mEetINg’,” Sehun mocks.

 

The subsequent eye roll has a withering effect on Jongin. He watches as Sehun picks himself off the ground and starts walking to his room, the picture of a sulking toddler. A giant one at that, but Jongin is nonetheless fond _and_ scared and almost forget that he’s being reprimanded.

 

“You’re my _manager_ ,” Sehun whines lowly, in a tone that's disappointed enough to make Jongin feel remorseful again. “Not some kind of deadbeat dad. Aren’t you like, I don't know, supposed to support me or whatever.”

 

“I know, Sehun,” he sighs, following him into his room and settling on the edge of the bed with the idol. The idol who is, at the moment, pouting in a way that is too cute for his own good. Even with the fiercest eyebrows in the world, the pout suits his face somehow. Jongin swallows. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. It won't happen again.”

 

“You’re right, it won’t,” Sehun sighs. “'Cause today was my last performance."

 

Jongin groans.

 

"Fuck, Sehun, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot that it's your closing stage to-"

 

"It's alright, really," Sehun responds. He's got a reassuring smile on his face, the kind that makes Jongin realise how undeserving he is to even be near the other; how he is so quick to forgive. He probably wasn't even angry with him in the first place.

 

Disappointed, probably. Jongin feels horrible.

 

"I really am sorry," Jongin starts, feeling a little brave and reaching out to place his free hand on Sehun's knee. "You're right, I'm not a deadbeat dad. I'm your manager and I should have been there for you."

 

"It's fine, man," Sehun grins. "The fans were great today. I mean, I didn't get a win, but... The cheers..."

 

A look of adoration overtakes his face at the thought of his loving fans, probably having cheered him on for his birthday. Jongin suddenly remembers the package he'd had tucked under his arm.

 

"Hey," Jongin interrupts the other's deep thought. He notices dark circles under Sehun's eyes, his face completely bare of makeup, and his heart pangs in response. "I got you something."

 

Sehun's eyes widen at noticing Jongin's massive package for the first time.

 

"Oh my god, Jongin!" The smile he gets is so wide; it's the kind that makes Sehun's cheeks puff up and eyes squint into little crescents. Jongin laughs as he passes the gift over, and Sehun doesn't stop for a beat before tearing the wrapping apart. In all his excitement, his dark hair falls over his eyes and he flips it aside and puffs with his mouth to get at the rest. He is just so _cute_. "Is this what I think it is?"

 

"I-" _Was it?_ "I hope so."

 

Sehun's smile drops as instantly as it had manifested on his face. The sudden change of expression gives Jongin whiplash.

 

He coughs.

 

"Why would you get me a Wii?" Sehun questions, though with his deadpan voice, it sounds more like a passive aggressive statement, and it bites. He looks somewhere at the corner of his room, and Jongin's eye follows his line of sight. There, perched against numerous sets of board games, a rolled up wall poster of the American Constitution, and a stack of condoms, rests an identical box.

 

Oh _fuck_. Good one, Jongin.

 

With a deep sigh, Sehun aptly destroys Jongin’s soul with a, "this is the second fucking time you’re doing this. I said, ‘I want to get a friend for Vivi’, not ‘get me another Wii’.”

 

Jongin purses his lips and looks down at his Armani clad thighs in shame. The internet had failed him.

 

"You know what," he hears the idol mutter, "whatever, man."

 

"Sehu-"

 

"It's fine," Sehun sighs, disappointment etching his features once again. Jongin feels so bad at the sight of it, at Sehun trying not to be too upset. He is such a _fuck up_. Sehun smiles at him, but with all his previous energy dissipated. "I'm just overreacting. It's just a gift, and I'm thankful. Two is better than one, as they say."

 

Sehun trails off into a silence that doesn't give Jongin any room to say anything. So he brews in his self-pity in silence. This was supposed to be his opening to show Sehun how much he cared for him - as more than a manager, and more than a friend. And now he's fucked up, _twice_.

 

"I'm gonna go see my mother." Sehun is the first to break the silence.

 

Jongin looks back up with pleading eyes and a brain to mouth filter that doesn't strain the words pushing out of his lips.

 

"Let me come with you!"

 

Sehun raises his brow at this. "And why would you want to do that?"

 

"I mean, she loves me, and I love her, and I love _you_ -” he cuts himself off before he can make the biggest mistake of his entire career. Confessing to Sehun right now would rain Armageddon on him, and right after he's fucked up too.

 

“- _usuf_ Khan.” Jongin cringes internally. “ I love... Yousuf Khan.”

 

Sehun squints suspiciously, sizing him up, but then shrugs. “I didn’t know you and my mom both had the same taste in Punjabi films.”

 

Jongin sighs in relief, and confusion. He has a few questions for Sehun's mom.

 

“Yeah, I suppose your mom and I have a lot in common?” _Like the fact that we both love you_ , Jongin thinks to himself. _Except she probably doesn't love you the same way I do, that would be weird_.

 

"Actually, yeah, I think it would be cool of you to come with," Sehun mutters. "Beats having security following me around all day. And my mom _does_ love you."

 

There seems to be an unsaid 'for some reason' hanging in the air, but Jongin tries not to let it get to him. He shakes his head, he's probably imagining a tension that isn't even there to begin with; Sehun is a very forgiving and kind person, after all.

 

"I'll go book us the tickets now, then." Jongin gets up and moves to the door as Sehun snuggles under the sheets. "There should be a train leaving in the early morning."

 

"Swell."

 

Jongin has his hand on the light switch when Sehun speaks up.

 

"Hey, Jongin," Sehun speaks up when he's at the doorway. His voice is soft and alluring, like it always is - this time more so. Jongin's afraid to even look at him (his heart can only handle so much emotional beating in a day). "I'm not good with words, but um... Don't beat yourself up. You're a great guy, Jongin. I never knew my dad but, you come pretty close."

 

"Wait. You see me as a... Father-figure?" Jongin tilts his head like a confused puppy.

 

"Um," Sehun burrows under his blanket, "something of the sort? I guess?"

 

"O-Okay," Jongin offers a small smile, still unsure about the turn in the conversation. "Sleep well, Sehun. And, happy birthday."

 

Jongin switches the light off and runs out of the room before Sehun notices the flush of his cheeks; a rush of blood (no, not that kind) he should be accustomed to by now.

 

Jongin takes his jacket off, finally, and pads quietly back into the living room. On the floor near the dining table, lies the barely finished puzzle, it's pieces in complete disarray. And on top of that, lies an innocent looking Vivi: but Jongin knows better.

 

"Alright, Vivi," Jongin heaves as he picks him up, "that's enough death and destruction for one day." However, he smiles and kisses the puppy on the nose, for he feels that anything destroying a part of Henry Lau deserves a kiss.

 

He settles on the black leather couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table as he starts petting the puppy's fur. It has an almost wooly texture, but it doesn't deter him from scratching Vivi until he playfully squirms onto his back, message clear: _rub my fucking belly, heathen_.

 

"Alright, alright," Jongin laughs, giving the belly rubs Vivi deserves. This is almost routine to him; positioning himself on the couch, or the floor, or a bed with Sehun's pet for company while the owner slumbers. Jongin can never refuse Vivi his belly rubs, and it's like Vivi himself knows it, probably has Jongin conditioned to do it. It's not like Jongin doesn't get nothing out of it - Vivi has become the designated outlet of his daily venting.

 

 _It's all for the belly rubs_ , Vivi yips in contentment.

 

"Your owner really is something else," Jongin begins. Vivi is just a dog, and all he understands is _pats_ and _treats_ , but even so these words are starting to sound familiar. He is a good, smart boy. "I think I'm going to have to wait a while longer before I tell him."

 

"One of these days, Vivi is going to be the one who tells him," a voice calls out conspiratorially from the kitchen. Jongin startles, followed by a yelp that could either be from him or Vivi.

 

"Jesus, Seulgi. What the fuck are you doing here?" Jongin lets his hand fall back on Vivi's furry back. "And how long have you been here?"

 

Seulgi shrugs as she takes a long gulp of iced tea. "I'm always here. You just never see me. I’m always lurking."

 

"O... kay then."

 

"Anyway, love life not doing too good?" Seulgi plops down next to him, offering two courteous belly rubs for Vivi as an entrance fee to sit near him.

 

"It's... complicated."

 

"Sure. That's just code for 'I'm a fucking wiener'. Man up, Jongin."

 

Before Jongin can even take offence to what she said, she pulls out her phone and unpauses a video that she'd already had ready. Trust Sehun's stylist to always be prepared.

 

"So, this is what you missed out on today."

 

It's a video of Sehun's final stage, angled from behind since Seulgi had probably taken it backstage. Jongin can see all the fire and passion rolling in waves as he rolls his body to the powerful beat of his title track: Transformer. Even from Seulgi's vantage point, Jongin can see each expression change, each panty-dropping dance move, each ‘ _tick tick_ ’ and each ‘ _boom boom_ ’. The fans go wild at every thrust and kick, and Jongin's smile grows wider, prouder, like it’s about to blow.

 

And then, Sehun stutters.

 

The backing track doesn't do much to cover it up, since it the vocals were completely  live. Sehun stumbles with his rap, and for a whole five seconds, there's a lack of lyric.

 

"Oh _no_ ," Jongin moans, in complete shock. Never has anything like this happened to Sehun live. "He... He didn't mention this to me at all? He told me he had a great performance."

 

"Do you really think he was going to?" Seulgi sighs, tucking her phone back in her pockets. Jongin's glad, he doesn't think he can take much more of it. "His fans did manage to cheer him up, they planned a birthday thing for him after but... He was still pretty down. And he cares about what _you_ think of him. A lot. He didn't want you to be disappointed."

 

"Wha- Why would I _ever_ be disappointed?"

 

"Beats me, man." Seulgi takes another swig of her drink. Vivi nips at his hand for attention; he had stopped giving him any the moment Seulgi started playing the video. She continues, breaking his line of thought, "but to be honest, Jongin, and no offence or anything but, it's you the disappointment should be aimed at. Where even were you?"

 

Her tone stings, and he recoils a little. "It's... complicated."

 

"Of course," she sighs, giving up and getting up. "He's got not more schedules at least. Just... make it up to him okay?"

 

Vivi barks softly, as if in agreement (he really just wants those fucking belly rubs. It is so hard when Korean is not your first language). Jongin rubs his face with his free hand, and agreeing with Seulgi, makes a mental resolution to make it up to Sehun - and with no hidden romantic agenda.

 

 

 

 

"Yes. Yes ma'. I'm coming with Jongin. And Vivi, of course. No. No. Yes. Sure. Yes, okay. _Okay_. Yes. Alright mom, okay, gonna hang up now. Yes. Yes. Love you too. Bye."

 

Jongin smiles at the exhale Sehun emits; worn out but obviously loving. He hasn't spoken much to him, sitting in the passenger seat and opting to look out the window at the skyscrapers they'll soon be seeing less of. Jongin attributes it to having woken up early to catch their KTX to Busan, and the residual self-deprecation from his performance.

 

"Your mom must be excited to see you, huh?" Jongin starts, feeling about as conversational as a doormat. He cringes at how preppy he sounds. The manager isn't sure if he should be bringing up what happened at the performance, because it doesn’t seem like something Sehun wanted to talk about - now of all times anyway. He tries everything and anything to make sure he doesn't dwell on it in his mind, or accidentally let it slip to Sehun.

 

"Hmm," Sehun hums in response, rolling the window down to let the breeze fan across his face. He doesn't offer anything else.

 

They stop at the lights. There's no other vehicles around this early in the morning, and the quiet is almost eerie. Even Vivi remains silent in the back, and Jongin for some reason, feels completely on edge. His grip on the steering wheel tightens, and his breath quickens.

 

Sehun seems to be the opposite, either unaware of the uneasy quiet, or uncaring of it. He has his entire arm out of the window, feeling up the air with lazy sways of his wrist.

 

The lights turn green and Jongin is all but about to step on it when loud sirens emerge from their left. The sirens only increase in volume as several fire trucks zoom past in front of them. Even when they’re not moving, Jongin’s hand flexes out on instinct to act as a shield for Sehun, smacking against the other’s broad chest.

 

“Hff-”

 

“Sorry, I- just making sure you won’t get hurt,” Jongin murmurs, loud enough to be heard over the blaring horns. After what feels like fifty fire trucks passing them (it was fifty-three), they soon fade out, the last of the vehicles going completely out of sight.

 

“Um.”

 

“Oh, right.” Jongin snatches his hand back. The light is back to red, and it’s coloured beam covers up his coloured cheeks. Jongin stays put, because as someone who doesn’t take road safety lightly, he is not going to take any chances.

 

Sehun goes back to gazing out the window. Except this time, his focus is caught on something above them. He stretches his hand out, and feels rather than sees the dark ashes floating down. Out of boredom, he aims to catch more in his hand, but then, something much heavier falls flat on his palm.

 

A notebook.

 

Sehun sizes it up, suspicion in his gaze, but he decides it doesn't really matter. Scrubbing at the soot coating the front cover, he makes out the letters 'EATH NO'. Whatever the hell that means. He flips through it; the front pages have already been filled in; gibberish rules or whatever.

 

He tosses it to the back of the car finding no use for it; he already has a diary for the purposes of penning his Jongin-centred thoughts.

 

The light turns green and they finally start moving again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Seoul Station**

 

_All passengers boarding the KTX to Busan: this is your last call. I repeat, the KTX to Busan will be departing shortly, please make your way to the platform now._

 

 

 

 

 

**Carriage No.: 13**

 

Jongin hauls up Vivi (sitting snug and sound asleep in his transporter), as he climbs in after Sehun. The platform was emptying steadily, but in this early morning, the train was packed like sardines.

 

They can still hear faint noises from outside, up near the ticketing booth: a scuffle of some sort. But life’s too short to pay attention to other people’s problems, so they continue in. They bulldoze through the ambling crowd in their path, and make their way to their seats. Jongin somehow manages to talk through the entire ordeal,

 

Sehun claims the window seat. Jongin doesn’t feel too defeated about it until the other had stuck his tongue out at him playfully. He rolls his eyes and settles in beside him, setting Vivi on the ground between their feet.

 

“I do like you in suits,” Sehun’s finger flit over the tie, a touch that is as soft and barely-there as his voice. It finally seems to shut Jongin up. “But why aren’t you in something more casual?”

 

The voice and actions are so sudden, being the first thing Sehun has said to him all morning, and Jongin swears his heart just stops. He gulps, and tries to think of an appropriate reply.

 

“It’s uhh… Been a while since I saw your mom. I guess I just wanted to impress you.”

 

“Hmm?” Sehun raises his brow.

 

“I mean your mom! I wanted to impress your mom.”

 

The arched brow falls back in place, and Sehun seems to buy what he’s saying.

 

“You really act like you’re a divorced dad sometimes,” Sehun says mindlessly as he chuckles. Jongin bites his lip and tries his hardest to ignore the idol’s daddy complex for the third time in the past 24 hours.

 

“Thanks?” Jongin brushes his hair aside. “And I guess it was also the only thing I had ready at your place. We left in such a hurry.”

 

“You could have borrowed any of my clothes, Jongin. We’re like the same size.”

 

“That’s totally not true.” Jongin laughs easily. He ruffles Sehun’s hair. “You’re twice as big as you were when you debuted as an idol.”

 

Sehun smiles cheekily at that, still managing to look soft somehow. Even with his razor sharp, midnight black eyebrows. Even with shoulders that span the length of their train ride.

 

“You should sleep, Jongin.”

 

He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to spend the time he has with Sehun, sleeping, but his body seems to comply more with the other’s words than he would like. He feels his eyes slowly slip shut, like Sehun’s voice is some kind of ASMR trigger guiding him into dreamland.

 

“Fine, fine,” he replies, suppressing a yawn. He sets his phone to vibrate and ignores the smug look Sehun gives him. Rolling his eyes one last time at the idol-turned-love of his life, he melts into the chair and succumbs to sleep. Within minutes, he snores.

 

“God,” Sehun groans and stretches his limbs. “Fucking finally.”

 

He unlocks Vivi’s transporter and picks him up, setting him on his lap. He bears a treat for the pup in offering, because he knows how Vivi can get without the right kind of attention. Cue the affectionate scratches behind the ear.

 

 _Who’s the master now?_ Vivi curls up against Sehun in contentment.

 

“As much as I like this goofball,” Sehun whispers in Vivi’s ear with a fleeting look at Jongin’s open mouthed snoozing, “he would not fucking shut up.”

 

Because Vivi is a good, intelligent boy, he thinks in disdain: _I know exactly how you feel_.

 

They sit like that in silence for a while, Sehun scratching Vivi in all the right places, the dog in question sending subliminal messages to his owner, and Jongin snoring softly next to them. The chairs begin to grumble and vibrate, and Sehun knows they’re just about to depart.

 

_Final call for Busan!_

 

The conductor’s call was almost drowned out by the roaring engines. There’s a staff member outside on the platform directly in front of Sehun’s window, so he focuses his attention absentmindedly. The man is aiding latecomers onto the train, and upon seeing the handsome idol’s gaze on him, he flushes.

 

_SPLAT!_

 

“OH, fuck!” Sehun jumps and clutches his chest at the noise right next to his ear, a jump scare in the still early morning.

 

 

 

 

**Carriage No.: 10**

 

“Do you really think Morphe will give me a code?”

 

“Do you really want one, though?” Kyungsoo replies, shutting the compact. His tone implies that this is not the first time he’s said those words. “Morphe are snakes. Their brushes shed hair like serpents shed their skin... or whatever. _Man_ , I love metaphors.”

 

“Morphe _are_ snakes, that’s true.”

 

“Yep,” Kyungsoo smiles gently up at his best friend. “I wouldn’t trust them. And your subscribers wouldn’t trust you if you got into bed with them.”

 

“Yeah, totally, they wouldn’t trust me.”

 

“Real Techniques is where it’s at, Yeol.”

 

"Real Techniques is where it's at," Chanyeol agrees, throwing his signature lopsided smile his way.

 

"Aww, you guys are so cute. Will you please date already?"

 

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo look up abruptly at their fellow beauty guru friend, who is peering at the two of them over the head of the seat. They move to opposite corners of their respective seats at Joohyun's sly smirk, like two wrong ends of a magnet, and Kyungsoo only then realises how close he'd been leaning into his _best friend's_ space.

 

"Two broOoOos chilling in-"

 

"Stop it, Joohyun," Kyungsoo glares.

 

"You guys are the most 'no homo bromo' couple I have ever had the pleasure of meeting," Joohyun laughs. She laughs harder then at the awkward squirming her words cause. "Come on, guys. Be gay like the rest of us."

 

"We _are_ gay."

 

"Just..." Chanyeol's eyes flit briefly in Kyungsoo's direction. "Not together."

 

"Are they finishing each other's sentences now?" Another head pops up from the seat beside Joohyun's: the fiery haired, deceptively doll-faced, Sooyoung.

 

 _Great_ , Kyungsoo thinks, _that's_ two _out of three of the apocalypse bearing deities coming to bother my perfectly not-stale love life_.

 

"Haven't they been doing that since forever though," Yerim walks by with a hotdog, and flops into her seat across the aisle from the girls. Her body, however, is turned towards the boys. She’s wearing a graphic t-shirt with halloween styled lettering that reads: _Kim Taeyeon for President 2020._

 

“Ah, there's the other one _._ ” Chanyeol groans out loud.

 

"You guys, please, we're just friends." Kyungsoo sighs, hurting himself a little bit with his own words.

 

Simultaneously, all three girls tilt their head at him and purse their lips. "Sure, Jan,” they say in unison.

 

"Anyway, do you think we should have had our faces beat before we got on the train?" And with that, Joohyun leads her sisters away from Kyungsoo and Chanyeol's personal lives and gets into a heated discussion about... something or other. Kyungsoo is wallowing alone in his head too much to notice.

 

"They love to make things weird don't they?" Chanyeol laughs awkwardly and scratches his head, a nervous tick. Kyungsoo regards him, partly in disdain, partly in complete tooth-rotting adoration.

 

"They do."

 

The train vibrates to a start, as they hear the conductor yell out in the distance, and both of them fall into a silence. It's not an uncomfortable silence, not necessarily, but Kyungsoo spends most of it thinking about how much he'd like to hold Chanyeol's giant hand and Chanyeol quietly lamenting about the burrito he Should Not Have Eaten. Their thoughts are drowned out by the busy chatter of people around them, their friends and fellow (amateur) entrepreneurs and YouTubers, all heading out to the famed beauty convention in Busan.

 

They haven’t moved yet, and assuming by the level of noise increasing in the train, Chanyeol guesses that a few latecomers are still hopping on board. Focusing on the dawn sky does nothing for him, but there’s nothing that can distract him from grumbling stomach or Kyungsoo’s soft breathing. Maybe dropping back into conversation would help?

 

"So, no to Morphe, then?"

 

"No, Chanyeol."

 

 

 

 

**Carriage No.: 13**

 

Junmyeon is peeling potatoes again for some reason.

 

"Why?"

 

"Why what?' Junmyeon responds easily, with a little bite in his tone. He brings the red peeler and viciously shaves the skin off at full speed. He could probably make a competition out of it, and knowing Junmyeon, he just might - if he manages to live through this train ride, that is.

 

"Why are you peeling a potato?" His older brother sighs. "And why did you even bring a whole raw potato on the train?"

 

"They're for when I get hungry, Yixing."

 

"But those aren't even cooked." Yixing points out, picking at one of the fallen peels. They’re a sadder version of his yellow hoodie. He waves the peel in the air in front of Junmyeon's nose, making him scrunch it up in distaste. "See, you don't even like it."

 

"That's a bleeping peel you're holding up, of course I wouldn't like it, why else would I be peeling them off?"

 

Yixing lets the potato skin fall back on top of the growing pile in front of his brother, and mutters a few choice words to himself that Junmyeon can very much hear. Which means he has to actively censor them out while he hears them.

 

"Can you not swear, please. Mother would not be happy with this."

 

"Mom used to use my spare bottle for her 'special adult drink' when we were five," Yixing snorts, "I doubt she would care so much about a few swear words. Anyway, are you planning to cook those, or...?"

 

Junmyeon ignores the question and gives a cursory glance at his brother, a hidden disapproval sent telepathically that Yixing could probably sense and not care much for. Yixing's focus is instead on a small gadget that he's pulled out of his denim jacket. Junmyeon groans. It's the three-pronged bane of his existence:

 

"A fidget spinner? You still play with those?"

 

"What do you have against the latest trends, Junmyeon?" Yixing says, hoping to convey the 'what do you have against _me_ ' that's always been boiling inside him.

 

"First of all, those things are outdated as heck. They're _annoying_ as heck. They get on my nerves and I bleeping hate the fact that everyone seems to like them so much when all they do is bleeping spin. _Useless_ ," Junmyeon digs into the potato harshly, almost breaking the peeler. _Wow_ , Yixing considers the scene with wide eyes, _guess that's the answer to my telepathic message_.

 

Yixing sighs; half in that familiar sense of despondence, and half in nonchalance. It's been like this for a while. Not a sibling rivalry per se, but these days it seems like  Junmyeon has an aversion to Yixing's entire being. The latter has been taking it all in stride, giving Junmyeon the space he needs, but he can’t hide the hurt he feels and the yearning he has to get close to his brother again.

 

The older of the two tries occupying himself in other ways. Guess that’s one thing his spinner is good for. He balances the whirring device on the tips of his fingers and lets his mind get occupied momentarily by it.

 

Junmyeon scoffs as it falls; Yixing didn’t even realise it had stopped spinning. Guess he’s too distracted for his own good. The men sitting across the aisle from him have a dog, so he focuses his attention on it for a while, cooing at it gently. An aggressive huffing from beside him draws his attention back.

 

He watches Junmyeon angrily peeling three potatoes at once; he’s _nervous_.

 

"You know..." Yixing starts in a gentle voice, as if approaching a hurt animal. He spins the toy between his fingers again and tosses it from one hand to another without letting it drop. Junmyeon refuses to admit that he is impressed. "If you're nervous about trains, you can just tell me?"

 

Junmyeon looks up immediately. Yixing receives the full force of his brother's narrowed, disapproving glare, though as scary as it could be, it's a bit comical with him having potatoes in his hands.

 

"YoU kNOw,” Junmyeon repeats mockingly, “if you're going to be playing psychiatrist throughout this whole ride I might as well jump off right now."

 

"All I'm saying is," _spin spin_ , "that's a waste of some good potatoes."

 

 

 

 

**Platform No.: 2**

 

Being up at fuck o'clock in the morning and ushering (via the medium of his loud voice) stragglers into a train that's just about to fucking leave is not how Kim Heechul had seen his Wednesday start with. He's only filling in for his co-worker, but he really thinks his time could be better spent. By sleeping, for example.

 

That's what he thought anyway... At first.

 

Heechul moves further towards the front end of train, and away from what sounds like a heavy argument coming from the ticket area on the floor above him. He glances over his shoulder at the screams, coming from what looks like people circling _something_. A few security members running past him to check on the matter.

 

"Final call for Busan!" The conductor, Park Jinyoung, shouts from the open door. He gives Heechul an amiable wave before going back inside. The train starts to rumble, but the doors remain open.

 

Heechul adjusts his hat, looking around him as he tries to spot any last minute passengers. And that's when he sees him-

 

 _Oh Sehun_. The child star turned reality TV star turned idol and model of this generation, is staring right at him. Or behind him, but Heechul would like to think that the star of all his dreams (the normal kind, the day kind, the scary kind and the wet kind), is staring at him.

 

His heart jumps up from his chest, right into his mouth as he plops it open slightly in recognition and shock. His face starts to feel hot.

 

Being up at fuck o'clock in the morning and ushering stragglers into a train that's just about to fucking leave is not how Kim Heechul had seen his Wednesday start with - but it’s definitely making him think that he’s in the right place at the right time, right now.

 

Heechul is completely distracted; he no longer hears the sounds of the engine, the call of the conductor, the screams from the escalators, or the two people that sneak onto the train.

 

Almost as quick as his attention had focused on Sehun, it's violently jerked away by something behind him. It hits him right in the shoulder, and the force of the hit is so strong it makes him stumble forward.

 

His senses return to him, with enough time to register the resonating _SPLAT!_ against the window in front of him; in front of Sehun.

 

 _Oh_ , he sighs in mild relief, _it's just a bird_.

 

 

 

 

**Carriage No.: 13**

 

It was just a fucking bird.

 

Sehun sighs in relief. He shakes his head and pounds a fist against his chest to try and get rid of the remaining jitters: that was quite a shock for him. Vivi nips at his fingers to try and get his attention again, and Sehun does as he is bid, like the good master ( _slave_ , Vivi would argue (if he could argue)) he is.

 

He looks back out the window to see that the worker is not injured, by any means. He gives the man a smile, to which he is offered a grimace/grin hybrid thing. He looks like he could either be having a stroke, needing to pee, or is just nervous. Sehun waves at him unsurely.

 

The vehicle starts to move along at a gentle pace, _finally_ \- it felt like they had been sitting for ages. Sehun thinks he can probably afford to get some shut eye as well, he's tired after all. The man on the platform finally starts to wave back, zapping back to life before he's jogging gently alongside the train beside Sehun's window as it picks up speed. He seems to be mouthing something that looks like: ' _you are the glove of my wife_ '.

 

But then, he trips.

 

With wide eyes, Sehun cranes his neck to check on the fallen man, but all he sees is a fuzzy, bright pink form looming over on the edge of the platform.

 

 _Strange_.

 

He turns to tell Jongin what he had just witnessed but his mouth clamps shut at the sight of his still snoring manager. A fond smile takes it’s place instead and he decides to just let him be.

 

The station slowly but surely turns into into a blur as they leave it behind. Sehun shakes his head again. He definitely needs to sleep a bit, or perhaps move around or something. It can't be normal to be seeing large, fluorescent hairy beings on a Wednesday morning.

 

"What do you think about going for a little walk, Vivi?" He picks option two. He's tired, and he wants to sleep, but he's been sitting on his ass for what feels like close to an hour, so he thinks maybe a little stretching would help. Plus, he needs to pee.

 

Vivi remains unbothered.

 

He picks up his toy poodle and holds him close to his chest. Jumping over Jongin's outstretched legs was no mere hurdle; those legs go on forever. Sehun's admires them fleetingly before crossing the streams. He offers a small smile to the men sitting on their left; one of them seems to be having some kind of mental breakdown (and was juggling potatoes?) and the other seems to be having an existential crisis.

 

A walk is _definitely_ what Sehun needs.

 

There’s very little noise in his carriage as he trudges past the other passengers, who are either asleep or busy on their phones – either way everyone seems to be avoiding human interaction. Sehun can relate.

 

Seeing one of the passengers chug an entire 600 mL bottle of Lipton Pure Leaf Mango iced tea (pretty impressive, he didn’t seem to breathe in between gulps), reminds him of his earlier need to empty his bladder. He makes his way ahead, now with a clearer destination in mind.

 

The bathroom is at the end of the passage way, and there’s two women standing outside chatting to each other. He could probably ask one of them to hold on to Vivi while he pees.

 

“But why would I _want_ to fuck Sonic the Hedgehog in the first place, Baekhyun?” He hears one of them state in a determined tone, not understanding the context behind the question.

 

“Life hits you fast, Jongdae.”

 

“Um, excuse me, are you ladies in line?” He cuts in their conversation.

 

One of the two, a petite woman with a pixie cut hairstyle and elongated eyes, regards him. She must be Baekhyun, he assumes. “We’re not, but... You might want to try and find a different bathroom, this one is going to be occupied for a while.”

 

“Cute dog,” the other woman comments giving Sehun a sympathetic look and Vivi a little tap on the head.

 

“Thanks. And that’s fine.” Sehun smiles politely, and turns to leave.

 

“Hey,” one of the ladies calls out, “you’re that idol, aren’t you? Oh Semen?”

 

“Oh Sehun,” he corrects her with a grin.

 

“Ah that’s right,” the longer haired woman with a kittenish smile says. “You’re very handsome. I’m Jongdae, by the way.”

 

“Thank you.” Sehun blushes ever so slightly. “Good to meet you too.”  

 

Baekhyun smiles shortly at their interaction before muttering a ‘she’s been quiet for some time,’ and knocking on the door.

 

“Honey? Is everything alright?”  

 

“I HAVE A FUCKING VIRUS INCUBATING INSIDE OF ME,” an extremely loud, harsh, female voice answers, muffled only by the flimsy doors. Both women, Sehun and Vivi jump at the volume of it. “WHAT DO YOU THINK? THERE’S A DEMON IN MY UTERUS MAKING ME THROW UP FROM BOTH ENDS, I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF I WAS ABLE TO DO SO IN PEACE.”

 

Jongdae chuckles awkwardly and says, “that’s our Minseokkie,” the same time Baekhyun utters reassurances through the door to the third woman.

 

Sehun offers one last smile before fleeing the scene. Even Vivi is a little shook.

 

“I’m kinda glad that I’m gay right now,” he mutters to himself. “Women have it rough.”

 

“ _Ruff_ ,” Vivi barks as if repeating Sehun.

 

“Yes, Vivi, _rough_. Good boy.”

 

Sehun pushes open the high-tech automatic doors and enters the next carriage. He passes by more passengers, but the serenity in this carriage is disrupted by the sound of one angry looking business man vehemently cursing someone out on a phone call.

 

He looks vaguely familiar to Sehun; it must be the business suit-baseball cap getup.

 

"I expect them to be ready by the fourth of _May_ ," the man almost yells, having no regard for the people around him. "I am not going to listen to any of your shitty excuses. Get it done."

 

Just as the man hangs up, Sehun realises why he is so familiar. It's Yang Hyunsuk, talent scout for his company's biggest rival company: YG Entertainment.

 

Sehun covers his face with his bangs and hunches down to make himself smaller as he hurriedly locates the bathroom at the end. He isn't spotted, thank _god_. There's no one standing outside, thankfully, and it's vacant too - the green sign flipped up. This means he won't be getting yelled at by angry, hormonal pregnant women, or angry, deranged talent agents whom he'd had to reject back in his early teens.

 

He sighs in relief.

 

Hoisting Vivi up by his butt, he frees one hand to pull open the door, and-

 

" _Zitao?!_ "

 

 

 

 

**Carriage No.: 9**

 

Ahn Sohee has been working for Korail for a good two months, making the same trip in the same route numerous times.

 

Sohee does her rounds as a service attendant, catering to every odd request she's had so far - and of course, she _had_ still been prepared for it. When an elderly couple asked for three condoms (she felt a pang of sympathy), she offered them four: she was ready. When a little girl, no older than the age of 4, asked for a little boot for her Barbie, she had pulled out five for her to choose from: she was ready. When a tall, elven looking teenager asked her for a spicy burrito, she offered him the spiciest one: she was ready. And when a sweaty looking man on the brink of a breakdown asked her for fresh potatoes, she got him a crate-full: she was ready.

 

She's seen her fair share of Crazy Shit that goes down on the KTX, so she's always prepared for any emergency, at any time.

 

Or so she had thought.

 

Sohee makes her way back to vestibule to retrieve a pack of cigarettes for this one man as a request – he assured her that as per the train rules, they would not be lit, he just wanted to put it in his mouth as a ‘metaphor', incessantly badgering for them even over the sign that clearly read ‘No Cigarette Bites’.

 

When she reaches the door, she stops short. There’s a lump on the floor. It was a bit larger than the average human, and there were green hairs sprouting from places that no human should have that much hair on. But it was still very distinctly human. Perhaps anthropomorphic?

 

She approaches it with caution, hand readily going for the pepper spray on her belt, when the lump on the ground whimpers and says something intelligible: "fuck my _hairy_ _ass_ "

 

"Oh my goodness," Sohee exclaims, getting down on her knees and turning the body  
over towards her immediately. "Miss…” She looks at the nametag, “...Keisha? Miss Keisha, are you alright? Oh my god, she fucking dead..."

 

"It's… so... warm..." It's a woman, that much is clear. She's much bigger than any other woman Sohee had ever encountered, and she seemed to be growing even bigger, right before her eyes. The hand Sohee had placed atop the woman's is barely visible under what looks like neon green _fur_ , lengthening at an alarming rate.

 

"I… smell... everything..."

 

"What do you, um, smell, miss?"

 

"Must… get... all the... _smoothies_..."

 

Oh _no_ , that is the one thing Sohee did not have.

 

"I'm sorry ma’am, I don't have any smoothies on me at the moment. Let me call the conductor." Sohee pulls out her emergency phone and dials the first number on speed dial: her emergency emergencies contact. "Mr Jinyoung, sir? We have an emergency."

 

_“Aren't you the expert during times of emergencies? What is it?”_

 

"Yes yes, I know I am but I have no idea what is happening. There's a-a woman here with me, but she's, I don't how to explain it, she's bloating really quickly and growing hair everywhere-"

 

_“That sounds hot.”_

 

"No, sir, listen. I think she _is_ feeling very hot."

 

_“She should be, damn”._

 

"Sir, this is a real emergency. Sir? She's starting to get really…"

 

Sohee clicks end on the call, as her eyes follow a slow movement.

 

"… _furry_."

 

The woman, the _beast_ , had stood up without her realising. It stands at nearly 8 feet tall, by Sohee's gobsmacked estimation. It no longer seems like a woman, no longer seems like anything Sohee had ever seen before - except, maybe, a wolf of some kind? It's face definitely had the makings for a wolf, despite the odd coloured fur all over it's body, and the prominently protruding breasts where wolves' breasts usually are _not_ supposed to be located. Sohee has no idea what it is, and that scares her.

 

One sudden turn, a rapid glance in Sohee's direction has her stumbling and falling on her butt. She clutches her pepper spray in horror.

 

It sniffs the air twice, and then all Sohee sees is green.

 

 

 

 

**Carriage No.: The Whole Entire Fucking Train Man, Since There's Fucking Furries On It Now**

 

Jongin is jerked awake by distant screams and yowls and some other strange sounds in a dream. Only, he can still faintly hear the same cacophony of sounds somewhere ahead of him.

 

He stands up swiftly and glances to his right. "Seh- Where the _hell_ has he gone off to?"

 

Then, a glance to his left. The two seated men have their hands braced on the armrests, eyes glancing back and forth between the train staff running down the aisle to where the noises are coming from in front of them.

 

“Did either of you by any chance happen to see where my friend ran off to?”

 

The one wearing a sun yellow hoodie looks up at him like he’s surprised at being addressed by Jongin. “Tall, Dark and Handsome with the poodle? He went back that way.” He gestures with his head to the opposite end of the all the hubbub. Jongin’s exhales is full of relief.

 

“Thank you…”

 

“Yixing.” He offers. “You wouldn’t happen to know what the hell is going on right?”

 

“Xing,” the other guy speaks up, “the man just woke up.”

 

“Right,” Yixing smiles apologetically up at Jongin. He has a dimple, Jongin notes, trying not to outwardly express his endearment.

 

“Okay,” Jongin speaks up after a beat. The screams get louder by the second and Jongin starts to pale. People have started running back, going further away from the epicenter of the noise. They’re led by two screaming teenage boys, and Jongin can vaguely make out a ‘run, run!’ from them before they disappear completely. Jongin thinks they’re wise in doing so. “I’m gonna go find Sehun – my friend.”  

 

“Alright, we’ll be here.”

 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo grabs onto Chanyeol’s (swole) arm in a tight grip.

 

“Ow, ow–!”

 

“Chanyeol. What in the hell is that?”

 

“What in the hell is wha- what the fuck.”

 

There's a navy blue giant of a hound, standing on it’s hind legs, situated in front of an even larger green one. They both stare without any emotion into the carriage. The navy blue one seems to be draped in what looks like a very fitted version of the train staff's uniform. It looks like a wolf, but at the same time, it's doesn’t. It's disconcerting, to say the least.

 

All Kyungsoo can think of while looking at them is how big and _furry_ they are.

 

Their eyes have an almost synthetic, dull sheen to them - like plastic, reflecting the sunrays with every which way they turn their heads. They haven't stopped sniffing loudly since Kyungsoo noticed them. It's almost as if they were searching for something, or getting accustomed to the scents in the room.

 

And they are _smiling_ . _Why are they smiling?_

 

In all his years of body hair removal and maintenance, volunteering at spas, and being a small time YouTube beauty guru, never has Kyungsoo seen anything like this. And he's got a feeling he doesn't want to stick around and find out what the _fuck_ they are.

 

Kyungsoo, having gotten up only a moment ago to the toilet, had stopped short at the sight of the creatures seemingly standing guard. He thinks fast and pulls Chanyeol up by the arm.

 

“Run!”

 

They bolt at the very moment the two furry wolf people start to lunge at the passengers.

 

 

 

 

“ _Have you seen my friend?_ ” Jongin asks a passing elderly woman, in a voice that reeks of desperation - with all the passion of a father looking for his son across the ocean. He has a page from a magazine for photo reference for anyone who had seen him. Granted, it’s a shitty tabloid, but that’s all he has at the moment.

 

**OH SEHUN AND HUANG ZITAO SEEN HOLDING HANDS AS THEY WALK ALONG THE HAN RIVER**

 

Even in the middle of his mild panic, Jongin snorts. As if _his_ Sehun would ever date _Huang Zitao_. Out of sheer pettiness, he gets his fountain pen and crosses out Zitao’s face.

 

“Are you looking for Oh Sehun,” a small woman with gentle features peers over his shoulder. He stops his aggressive scribbling immediately.

 

“Yes! Oh my god - have you seen him?” Jongin grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her violently.

 

For some reason, she doesn’t even seem fazed. She just puts her hands on top of his with the the most gentle, motherly touch to stop him. "Yes I have. He was here not too long ago. My wife, she's pregnant, she's been needing to be in the bathroom so we asked him to locate another one, and I guess he must have found one because he hasn't been this way since."

 

"You've been standing here this whole time?" He doesn't notice his voice rising in volume to combat the cascading screams behind him.

 

"Ye-oof!"

 

Jongin's body gets slammed into hers as a mass of people flood the doorway. He sees the people run past in a flurry of colours, and amongst them, the man in the yellow jumper along with his companion. The screams intensify, and Jongin has to hold the woman against his body to keep her out of harm's way.

 

The body slamming slows to a gradual stop, and once Jongin deems it safe enough, he lets the woman go, keeping her at arm's length and examining her for any signs of injury.

 

"Are you okay?"

 

She doesn't answer him. She looks completely shaken up, but not because he had basically shielded her from a mob with his body. No,  her attention is wholly focused on something behind him - she stares over his shoulder for the second time, except now, her expression is gripped with fear.

 

“What the fuck is that?” She whispers, her eyes going wider.

 

Jongin turns to look behind him, still grasping on to her. The scene behind him is not what he expected at all; never in his wildest dreams, never in his nightmares even, would he have thought to be in a situation like this.

 

The sniffing sounds from in front of them increase, along with pained groans and a few screams, and it effectively draws their attention completely to the horrendous scene before them:

 

The opposite end of the carriage to where they both stand, are giant lumps upon giant lumps of what looks like rapidly growing people, maybe, they can't be too sure from the distance. Some of them stand tall, hovering over others and watching, seemingly waiting for something extravagant to happen, with the creepiest of expressions on their widened faces. Even from where he stands, Jongin can see the glassy look in their giant, oblong eyes.

 

They look like the nightmare versions of giant stuffed toys: innocent in an illusory way, furry, and somewhat huggable.

 

And that's what some of them seemed to be doing - at least from his point of view. The things appeared to be engulfing the passengers and train staff before letting them drop to the floor, where they begin to twitch, groan, sniff and grow.

 

There’s so many of them, too. Jongin can’t see past the patchwork of bright coloured fur, but he can see that there’s at least over thirty in that carriage alone.

 

His mouth falls open, completely shocked and confused at the sight. Jongin puts his arm out on instinct to shield the woman once again, just like he had done in the car for Sehun.

 

"Hff-"

 

"Sorry, just, stand behind me," he whispers back at her.

 

"Hey, I don't need a man protecting me, okay?" She whispers back, indignant and slightly offended. She pushes his hand down.

 

A few final _human_ humans rush past them, knocking into them with urgent ' _what the fuck are you doing, get the fuck out of here now_ 's.

 

"Didn't you say you have a pregnant wife," Jongin hisses, all the while trying to assess the situation. He's acting completely on instinct at this point. "We don't know what the hell these things are, but you're going to have to get her out safe."

 

She places her hand on top of his arm in understanding, and looking back at her, he sees gratitude written on her face. She moves away from him and knocks softly but desperately on the door, murmuring something.

 

The door to the bathroom opens, revealing a grumbling, enormously pregnant woman. Her wife shushes her gently and urgently, thinking quickly and covering her mouth before pointing in the direction of the hairy chaos. Understandably, the mother-to-be looked like she was biting down on her scream.

 

The two of them start to silently creep towards the front of the train. The woman Jongin had tried to cover for earlier hits him on the bicep to get his attention, to get him moving too.

 

Jongin nods, takes two tentative steps back and-

 

_Crunch!_

 

Everything stops: his movements, his breath, his heart the furry people in front of him, and even, possibly, the train itself.

 

In one swift movement, every single fully formed furry looking creature turns. Their big, beady eyes zone in on them instantaneously.

 

_Sniff sniff._

 

"We have to run, _now_!"

 

 

 

 

“What the fuck _was_ that?”

 

“I don’t know!”

 

“What the fuck are they?”

 

“DUDE. _I DON’T KNOW._ ”

 

The carriage they were in is crowded. It's packed to the brim, and everyone inside it is either panicking or trembling silently in fear and confusion. They've locked the doors and barricaded it up with their luggage as an extra precaution, but they aren't sure how safe they are anymore. They aren't even sure of what is happening.

 

"What the fuck is happening?" Sehun demands, the first person in his side of the carriage to finally speak up. His body now squashed between Zitao and a too-tall teenage boy named Chanyeol who won't stop staring at him unabashedly.

 

"You're Oh _fucking_ Sehun!"

 

It's the first thing he's said after minutes and minutes of all the passengers squirming around to get comfortable.

 

Sehun nods slightly to him, and smiles because he is a decent human with manners and knows how hard it is if you meet your actual idol and they turn out to be a complete dick. He puts his hand on top of Chanyeol's jittering knee to calm the other down.

 

This only serves to earn him a glare from the other teenager: compact-sized Do Kyungsoo. Sehun removes his hand immediately, and the instantaneous effect it has of Kyungsoo softening his glare, to Chanyeol pouting despondently, has him reeling.

 

How did he end up in the middle of a gay love triangle, in the middle of what could be an actual apocalypse.

 

Someone clears their throat.

 

"To answer your question, Mr Oh Sehun," the man with the peeler, Junmyeon, speaks up. "We have no bleeping idea what the heckles is going on."

 

"Very helpful," Baekhyun mutters. She's gnawing on her bottom lip, her eyes unfocused; they continuously exchange a glance to her hands, and at what she can see through the barricaded door on the other side. Sehun knows exactly how she feels.

 

The idol looks through the glass as well, with a slowly diminishing glimmer of hope. He has faith in Jongin, and he really hopes that the other has made it somehow, and is in hiding somewhere.  He tries not to think about the disappointment he felt when Jongin didn't make it to his last performance. This is different, though. This isn't about how Sehun feels; this is about Jongin still being alive.

 

"I was there on the platform," Zitao begins suddenly, startling Sehun and a few others into attentiveness. "I was there when the first wave hit."

 

"What exactly happened?" Kyungsoo asks.

 

"Yeah, what happened?" Chanyeol leans over to look around Sehun at Zitao. "Hey wait, aren't you Huang Zitao?"

 

"Uhh..."

 

"Why are you dressed like you're homeless? Aren't you an actor?"

 

"That's a long story. It... doesn't matter." ZItao huffs. He then turns his body towards everyone and moves in close. They all huddle closer to him automatically. He starts speaking as if he's retelling a terrifying folk tale around a dying campfire, and in a lot of ways, this is definitely a scary story to tell. "I was there. But I didn't see much of anything."

 

Everyone groans and leans back again.

 

"Dude, why would you start talking like you knew exactly what's going on?" Yixing shakes his head. Vivi snuggles deeper into his yellow hoodie, unbothered by everything.

 

"Look," Zitao raises both hands to ricochet the people's irritation. "I know just about as much as you all do. I just said I was on the platform when it happened. Someone got hugged by a massive ball of hair and then everyone was getting hugged by massive balls of hair and everyone was _turning_ into massive balls of hair. I ran and jumped into this train as fast as I could."

 

Everyone goes quiet at his words, each lost in their own thoughts: about the now, and about the future. Were they the only ones experiencing this? How was the rest of the world faring? The only sounds interrupting them come from their heavy breathing, the train's wheels against the tracks, a fidget spinner and Yungsuk's incessant whining.

 

"Get me OUT of this fucking train NOW."

 

People ignore him, for the most part.

 

Sehun is watching Vivi's chest puff up and down, distracting himself momentarily from his worries. Beside him, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo seem to be holding on to each other's hands, murmuring.

 

"Oh my god!" Baekhyun yells out, scrambling up to move to the door.

 

Sehun zaps to his feet like a current had passed through him. Beyond the glass doors he can see a frantic Jongin ushering the two women he had met before. And behind them... a whole fucking hoard of colour follows close behind, like waves from a very hairy ocean.

 

Baekhyun has already begun moving the piled up luggage out of the way.

 

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Hyungsuk roars. He pushes through to Baekhyun and  drags her away from the entrance. "I am not going to fucking die here today!"

 

"Hey! HEY!" Sehun shouts, moving forward to shove Hyungsuk aside roughly. "That's my fucking _friend_ out there you piece of shit."

 

"And they're my fucking wives," Baekhyun stomps her heel into Yangsuk's foot.

 

Yangsuk howls in pain and Sehun uses the diversion to his advantage. He opens the latch to the door and moves aside to let Jongdae and Minseok run on through before grabbing Jongin with all the force he could muster and pulling him inside. He shuts the door just as a heavy thud falls against it.

 

Sehun puts all his weight on the door to keep it closed, and Zitao and Yixing join him in doing so.

 

"Wait," Baekhyun starts unsurely. "Let go. Move back."

 

They do as they're told.

 

“They- they,”  She brings a hand to knock against the glass, and everyone gasps in horror, bracing themselves for the worst, but there’s no reaction from the creatures beyond the door. They've already started to move back the way they came. “I don’t think they know we’re here. I don’t think they can smell us through the door.”

 

“Let’s stay on this side, then.” Jongin supplies, still panting heavily. Sehun tears himself from the crowd to drown Jongin in a relieved hug - the kind that won't turn him into a big, hairy creature. He tries not to cry.

 

“Good idea."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Oh No Here We Go: Danger**

 

**Destination: Cheonan**

 

They were all safe, for the time being.

 

Apparently the transformation is almost immediate, so there's no reason any of them should be kicked out or quarantined. As much as the consensus seems to be that ' _that YG guy has_ got _to go before he makes things worse for everybody_ ' - everyone knows that every life, every _human_ life, is valuable right now.

 

Plus, they have him tied up to one of the chairs, so it should all be good.  


The crowd has dispersed to other parts of the train they've deemed as safe, opting to stay away from the doors to The Upside Down. There's more space now, and it may seem like they have won, but at what cost?

 

_Ding!_

 

" _Ladies and Gentlemen_ ," a muffled voice resonates. Everyone looks up immediately. " _This is your driver speaking. You may have noticed: we have a slight situation on our hands. Everyone still on the train, please remain calm. Some of the passengers might be... Well, I'm not entirely sure BUT, there is no reason to panic. I am fine, and so are the crew members, and most importantly, the train._ "

 

Everyone seems to liven up a little bit at his words, like they're spoken by god himself.

 

" _We've received word from the Daejeon that the military are stationed there. We won't be making our scheduled stop at Cheonan. In the meantime, sit back, relax, and try not to get hugged._ "

 

_Dong!_

 

The transmission ends and Jongin breaks away from Sehun's death grip to make a very important phone call. The carriage has cleared enough that he's able to isolate himself from everyone else to try and get word from his superior - if he's even still alive.

 

Three rings, and an answer.

 

“Mr Choi? Mr Choi,” Jongin gasps into the receiver. “What the fuck is going on?”

 

" _Do you have access to a TV or something? The internet, maybe?_ "

 

Jongin nods, before realising what a dumbass he is. "Yeah, the service is still good. TV's not telling us much about anything, the news just has some politician at a press conference. It's all reassurances and 'there's nothing wrong' and we shouldn't try to 'demolish this capitalist society' - a direct quote - when obviously..."

 

" _Hmm... Yes. Well, seems that all we can do now is pray._ "

 

"Mr Choi- SIWON!" Jongin glares at his phone in disbelief. "That fucker hung up on me."

 

Jongin tries ripping out the hairs on his head in frustration. Lord knows he'd probably end up growing lots more if he gets hugged.

 

"What's he saying?" Sehun settles down next to him, absent-mindedly taking Jongin's hand in his. "Does he know what's going on?"

 

"He wants us to pray," Jongin moans.

 

"Oh," Sehun laughs. "Yeah, not gonna happen. He's being trying to convert me since my pre-debut days."

 

Jongin doesn't realise he's smiling until it slips off his face.

 

"So..."

 

"So?"

 

"Zitao is here." Jongin fails in making it not sound like a question.

 

"Yeah," Sehun puffs out. "Apparently he's on some kind of self-cleansing pilgrimage thing. Left his home and all his belongings and everything. Something about wanting to be the Iron Fist or something, I don't know, the guy's always been kinda weird, don't you think?"

 

"What? Pfft- I've always thought he was cool," Jongin says in a pitch only Vivi could hear.

 

Sehun raises a strong brow. He doesn't say anything else, just let's the issue go, and Jongin is still sweating. He can't believe that out of everything that's happened today, talking to Sehun makes him the most nervous. Sehun leans his head against Jongin's shoulder like it's the easiest action in the world, while he scrolls through his phone.

 

He opens snapchat.

 

"Oh my god. _Jongin_ ," he sits up straight. "Seulgi updated her story just half an hour ago. Maybe she's found a safe zone."

 

He clicks on Seulgi's icon. A couple of selfies taken in Sehun's house - nothing knew, she always his inside his closet for some reason - and then a selfie video playing with Vivi, another video of her drinking his last few bottles of iced tea, and then...

 

It's a video taken from the front camera. Seugi's face isn't in view, but Jongin and Sehun sit up straighter upon hearing her ragged breathing. She's still in Sehun's house, they can tell by the view of the pantry. She seems to be leaning against the kitchen island.

 

" _Must get... Smoothie..._ "

 

A hand comes into view. Seulgi's hand. Covered completely in orange fur.

 

" _That... Bitch..._ "

 

The video cuts off.

 

Sehun's head falls back on Jongin's shoulder.

 

Chanyeol bites the inside of his cheek as he watches their exchange. It's hard losing someone so suddenly. He doesn't know if Joohyun, or Sooyoung, or mischievous tumblr feminist Yerim are still alive. He tries to combat the guilt by distracting himself with his phone. Might as well try to figure out what's happening right now.

 

The past is in the past, he's just got to let it go and hope they're okay.

 

Scrolling through his twitter feed. There's DMs from his fans asking him if he and Kyungsoo were alright, and he shoots a quick public message to reassure them. All he sees on his timeline though, is news about the end of the world as they know it. The internet has dubbed the hairy creatures as Furries, an appropriate name, and #furpocalypse along with related topics have taken over the worldwide trending list.  He sees videos upon videos of said 'Furries' crowding over people, cornering them and hugging them into submission.

 

One video has a red haired Furry swathed in Supreme, skateboarding along the sidewalk.

 

Bizarre.

 

Are they perhaps... _evolving_?

 

Even stranger, the internet has already turned the situation into a meme. Muttering 'fuck it' to himself, he retweets a gif of Judge Judy tapping her wrist, captioned: _'My legs are already hairy and my GPA is dropping so when will these fucking furries come for me already?'_

 

"So you guys are brothers, then?" Kyungsoo asks, biting into a raw potato and drawing Chanyeol's attention. Even Junmyeon cringes a little.

 

"Like, brothers? Siblings?" Chanyeol asks right after, putting his phone away to give them his full attention.

 

"We're not real brothers," Junmyeon readily replies. He peels off the skin of another potato, and doesn't see the look of hurt that flashes across Yixing's face. "We have the same mother but... Yeah, it's complicated."

 

Yixing tries to ignore the pang in his chest at the words, instead ruffling Vivi's fur. He seems to have really taken a liking to Yixing. Then again, it feels like Junmyeon is the only person who doesn't like Yixing at the moment.

 

Yixing sighs. At least Junmyeon seems more calm on a train full of giant wolf hybrids than he does with people. He turns instead to eavesdrop on Zitao's conversation with the three ladies, playing with Vivi's floppy ears as he does so.

 

"Hey what the hell was that for?" Zitao sputters, wiping his face.

 

Minseok pockets her spritz bottle back in her purse with pursed lips. "I carry that around and spray people when they act like a dumbass. We each have one, actually."

 

"But what did I even _do_?"

 

"Shh... We're pregnant, let us be,"  Baekhyun states. The tone she uses is contradictory to the happy news.

 

"Wait... all three of you?" Zitao states unsurely.

 

"No, _dumbass_ ," Minseok rolls her eyes, one hand caressing her baby bump and the other on her hip: the classic pregnant lady on a train stance. At her words, he immediately braces himself for the spray of water, but it doesn't come. He opens her eyes to see her rolling hers. Minseok removes the hand from her hip to gesticulate to the two women on either side of her. When she speaks next, her voice remains exasperated. "We're all in a relationship. We're all going to raise this baby. So we are all pregnant."

 

" _Right_..." Zitao drags out. He still feels like he is missing something important. “How did you get pregnant if you’re all women?”

 

“Not all women have vaginas,” Jongdae says with a tilt of her head; ever the patient one.

 

“So one of you has a penis?”

 

“No!” The three of them shout in unison - somehow managing to harmonise. Baekhyun adds, in a stern, motherly tone: “But even if one of us did, our genitals are nobody else’s business. Oh! Minseokkie, please save the spritz.”

 

"You're right, I'll definitely need it for later." She narrows her eyes on Zitao.

 

The train jolts, and everyone jerks forward.

 

"Minseok! Are you okay? Is the baby okay?"

 

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Minseok reassures her wives with a loving smile (a smile that Zitao is shocked to see, considering how mean she was to him). She pats her belly. "The little demon is fine, too."

 

"Are we stopping?" Kyungsoo gets up and looks out the window. The train has slowed down significantly, but there's no sign of stopping. A board on the platform reads 'Cheonan Station'.

 

All of them rise to their feet, curiosity getting the better of them as they try to take a peak of the situation in Cheonan - and find out why they're not stopping.

 

They get their answer within seconds.

 

The train is passing by slow enough that they encounter a large mass of Furries; just standing and staring at the moving train. Their heads tilt in the direction they're going as the train passes, but they make no move to approach it. Their eyes, large and observant; their mouths, open wide in a menacing grin, follow the train's movement.

 

Then, the unexpected happens: some of them wave at the passengers. Yixing feels uneasiness broil in the pit of his stomach. “They’re sentient?”

 

"Yeah," Chanyeol utters, "the internet calls them Furries. There's videos and stuff all over Twitter and Youtube about them being slightly intelligible. It seems like they might be evolving, or something. The only advantage for us is that they move quite slow."

 

Everyone looks at him in open-mouthed disbelief.

 

"And you're only just telling us this _now_?" Yixing hisses.

 

"Hey," Chanyeol mirrors Zitao's earlier gesture to evade blame. "I'm just a kid with a phone."

 

One of the 'Furries' taps on the window, and everyone's heads turn at once at the sound.

 

This one is... very different.

 

It's a brown Furry, with his right hand raised in a very inappropriate salute. Behind it, stands more of the same. Their torsos are clothed in black, and on the sleeve rests a red armband with a very inappropriate symbol. One of the Furries at the back waves a very inappropriate flag.

 

"Whoa," Junmyeon mutters in shock as they go out of view.

 

" _Okay_ ," Chanyeol whimpers, "but do you think the KKK will really protect their rights if their fur is brown."

 

"Good question," Kyungsoo replies. "And how did they even get their hands on Confederate flags? This is Korea."

 

“This is too scary.”

 

The train picks up its speed and the passengers sit tight.

 

 

 

 

**Destination: Daejeon**

 

Vivi struts up and down the aisle, picking up the pieces of potato peel Kyungsoo throws at him. _He must think this is some kind of fucking game_ , Vivi huffs, _but whatever, if it will keep the bored kid entertained._

 

They've been travelling for what feels like two hours, at least. Most of them have been able to get a little shut eye, even Yangsuk, who's snoring loudly even through his mouth gag.

 

_Ding!_

 

" _Hello everyone, hope you're all alive_ ," a bitter chuckle, " _we're almost here at Daejeon Station now. I have not been able to get in contact with the officials here, or the military for that matter; the radios seem to be down. But rest assured they are all here._ "

 

"Wake up, Sehun," Jongin prods the idol awake. Sehun opens his eyes sleepily, pulling away from his space in Jongin's shoulder. The manager doesn't even care that he's left a giant drool stain on his Kenji Formals Cooper Skinny Suit Jacket.

 

The passengers begin to stretch, waking up one by one. With pounding hearts, at the realisation that they might finally be getting of this train, they get up on their feet, and move to the doors.

 

" _As a precaution, however, I will remain in the vehicle with the engines running. If the coast is not clear, rush back as fast as you can, as safe as you can, and we'll just keep going. I can see which carriage doors I will need to open, so be quick, and be careful. Good luck._ "

 

_Dong!_

 

The train pulls up onto a deserted station. The sign reads 'Daejeon Station'. There is absolutely no one in sight. Not a single person; no army, no station managers, but thankfully, no Furries either.

 

Coming to a full stop, the doors open cautiously, as if it too is watching out for fur attacks.

 

Jongin and Sehun step out first, taking tentative steps, followed by Junmyeon and a Vivi cuddling Yixing close behind. The air feels different, almost like there's no wind at all. There's no noise either. They shrug it off, glad to be out of the train, and attribute the creepy silence to the fact that they'd been stuck on the KTX filled with the accompaniments of howling, sniffing and screaming.

 

It just feels so strange to be out in the open again. It feels like they're exposed; naked, somehow.

 

Zitao releases Yangsuk, who huffs and rushes out, nearly toppling Minseok on the way.

 

 _Asshole_.

 

Minseok can't find the energy to use her spray, and the man is gone anyway. Her wives help her climb down the steps and into the still air of Daejeon. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol trail behind the brothers as well. Other passengers slowly file out too, in groups, but Jongin sticks to the people he's been in the carriage with; even if it means dealing with Zitao, as well.

 

"So, what now?" Junmyeon voices, hauling his potato filled backpack on his shoulders.

 

"Right?" Kyungsoo says. "It feels a bit... Anti-climactic..."

 

"Yeah," Chanyeol agrees. "It's totally anti-climactic. But we're safe."

 

"Potentially," Jongin murmurs to them in warning. "Be vigilant."

 

Jongin feels the exact same way he had felt in the car: extremely uneasy. It was too quiet, and too peaceful. He keeps his mouth shut for the sake of the group, instead hoping that they'd be weary of their surrounding. It seems too easy.

 

Sehun sees a slightly bloodied Louisville Slugger leaning against one of the steps up to the concierge. _Nice_ , he thinks, as he picks it up. He'd never been great at baseball, but he thinks this will surely come in handy.

 

They reach the entrance, the surviving passengers moving as a one mass group towards the station exit. There's no one manning the ticket booth, no staff in sight, and with the silence they just assume they must be safe and sound. There's safety tape bordering their path, and the way the crowd moves is slightly reminiscent of sheep in a herd.

 

They have to travel down to get to the military base. From where they stand, they can see the tops of the army tents in the distance. There's a collective sigh of relief and a near silent cheer that rings through the crowd.

 

Jongin stays silent. Sehun, noticing the other's lack of response, slips his hand in his.

 

"Hey," he leans in to whisper, "is everything alright?"

 

"There's something wrong. It just doesn't feel right."

 

"Should we fall back?" Jongdae bites her lip anxiously.

 

The escalators work, and that answers her question, as everyone decides as a group that it must be a good sign. It has to be working because there's people, _humans_ , waiting for them at the bottom.

 

"Hey hold up!" Yixing passes Vivi to Zitao and bends down to tie his shoes. Only Jongin, Sehun, Kyungsoo and Baekhyun appeared to have heard him, because they're the only ones who remain by his side, waiting patiently as he hums a little song while tying his laces. He grins up at them. "Sorry, it's the only way I can tie them- ah! I keep messing them up!"

 

"Here, let me," Kyungsoo smiles before falling to his knees and helping Yixing with his laces. He starts humming the same tune to help him.

 

The passengers have almost all gone down, and the lack of noise is mildly reassuring to Jongin. Until-

 

"No _fucking_ way."

 

Jongin stands paralysed as he stares at the fucking Furry at the end of the hall. It stands tall in lonesome, looking straight at Jongin, and occasionally at the diminishing crowd behind him. It does nothing, it makes no noise, and for some reason that is even more threatening to Jongin. It almost seemed as if it knew a secret that he didn't.

 

The other's gazes follow his line of sight, and they freeze up too.

 

There's a second exit, and now it's gradually being occupied by Furries. One by one, more of the creatures emerge, larger, and hairier than the ones they had encountered on the train. They start to move in slowly.

 

And if this exit has Furries, then that must mean-

 

A bloodcurdling scream echoes from the ground level of the main exit.

 

 

 

 

An escalator, no matter if it's functional or not, feels like it's going to be a death trap. Chanyeol is smart enough to direct his group away from using it, for the purposes of ' _what if we have don't like what we see down there and we need to turn back around immediately, like who would be dumb enough in a situation like this to use a fucking escalator that keeps going down when you need to go in the opposite direction, I think it's about time we used our brains_ '.

 

And boy, was he right.

 

Chanyeol and Zitao, along with Vivi, take the lead while Junmyeon and Jongdae closely guard Minseok behind them, forming a human shield around her and the baby. A vast majority of the crowd, including Yangsuk, have almost reached the bottom, while their group moved at Minseok's pace.

 

Chanyeol stops abruptly.

 

"There's no one there?"

 

As if the words he just uttered were some form of switch, screams start to pick up from the people at the bottom of the steps. The group watch on in horror as people appear to get picked up in thin air and tossed back down, only for the Furry transformation cycle to take over them. Zitao is the first to break out of his trance.

 

"HOW ARE THEY INVISIBLE?" Zitao screams clutching Vivi close to him, as he turns back around.

 

"They're not!" Chanyeol yells back, helping Jongdae and Junmyeon steer Minseok back up the steps, "they're just wearing camo!"

 

They begin running, at Minseok's pace but faster, and even in the hurry they have the energy to feel annoyed as they collectively see Yangsuk run past them. _How does that asshole keep staying alive?_

 

Feeling both fed up and scared shitless at their pace, Zitao tosses Vivi at Junmyeon (to which he screeches in protest) and proceeds to pick Minseok up.

 

"What the _fuck_?"

 

"Wow," Zitao heaves, "yeah you're definitely not just one person right now."

 

Chanyeol swoops in and helps him out, repositioning her so that they each have her elevated by one of her legs, with one of her arms around their shoulders. Retracing their steps, they clamber down the stairs as fast as they can with the added weight, rushing right past the second herd of Furries that attempt to close in on them.

 

"I see Baekhyun!" Minseok yells. "Baekhyun!"

 

"Minseok! Jongdae! Guys hurry up!" Baekhyun yells, waving frantically from where she stands at the entrance of their carriage. Jongin and Sehun poke their head out too, momentarily relieved that Vivi and the others are in sight.

 

Their door is a little ways away from the where the other group is currently at, and with their slowed pace, Baekhyun's anxiety skyrockets. The train grumbles beneath her feet, and panic settles in even harder.

 

"No, no no- Guys! We're moving!"

 

Minseok's group swerve towards the train in a sharp turn, and disappear inside and into a completely different carriage. Baekhyun steps out fully; if she stands outside when the train starts to move, she should be able to jump into their carriage.

 

The Furries are still at the top of the steps, moving at a much slower pace than the ones on the train - possibly because they are much bigger, heavier. They are no less creepy though, and Baekhyun stands with her feet apart in case she needs to get into fight or flight mode.

 

_The only advantage for us is that they move quite slow._

 

There is a shattering coming from above the train, and Baekhyun stops to gawk at the number of Furries that come tumbling o to the platform. They had been converging on the glass of the bridge, pushing hard enough to have broken right through it and... some of them looks like they're... _Soaring_...

 

_Flying?_

 

"According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a fucking Furry should be able to fly," Baekhyun gasps.

 

" _Baekhyun_ ," Yixing screams, lifting her up and carrying her back to their door, "shut up and get in!"

 

 

 

 

**Destination: On Route to Busan**

 

_Ding!_

 

“ _Well, wasn’t that a disaster?_ ”

 

_Dong!_

 

"You can say that again," Jongin murmurs.

 

Baekhyun hasn't stopped punching Yixing in the arm. Kyungsoo hasn't stopped fidgeting with his compact mirror, and Sehun hasn't stopped pacing in front of Jongin.

 

"You're sure you saw all of them get in?" Sehun stops to ask Baekhyun for what feels like the fortieth time.

 

"Yes," Baekhyun pauses her punching to answer. "And I probably could have been with them if it wasn't for _you._ "

 

"Ouch, hey, listen," Yixing grabs onto each of Baekhyun's hands. "If I let you stand there, waiting for the train to just move, you'd be a fucking Furry right now." Baekhyun whips her hands out of his grasp, and glowers at him. "Come on, you have a baby on the way. You need to be there for that."

 

"Yeah, well," Baekhyun sputters, "what if she has the fucking baby right now? What if they walked straight into a compartment full of furries?"

 

Sehun runs his hand through his hair and distresses it even more.

 

Jongin, trying to maintain a semblance of serenity, leans over to talk to Kyungsoo. "Hey, have you noticed that your friend-"

 

"Repeats everything I say?" Kyungsoo finishes for him, shooting a knowing smile his way. Jongin nods. "Yep. But at least I'm safe inside my head."

 

A buzzing sound cuts into their anxious pacing. Kyungsoo's eyes widen as he feels his pockets for the source. Pulling out a flip phone, he looks at the caller ID like it's the bringer of life itself.

 

"It's Chanyeol!" He exclaims to them. He hurriedly flips it open and answers with a rushed, "Chanyeol! Are you guys alright?"

 

" _Yeah, we're all good. All of us made it, even Vivi._ "

 

"Vivi is fine," Kyungsoo mouths to Sehun, who practically melts at the words. "Where are you guys?"

 

" _Carriage number 10- no, we're in 9!_ "

 

"That's only one away from us!" Kyungsoo exclaims excitedly. The others around him sit up attentively. "Do you guys think you can make it to us?"

 

" _Um..._ " A pause. " _We're all stuck in a bathroom right now. They're everywhere, Kyungsoo._ "

 

Jongin pulls the phone from Kyungsoo, but instead of letting go of it completely, the teenager gets dragged along too. Jongin gives him a slightly affronted look, before they both lean into the receiver.

 

"Stay put," he says. He looks around at his group. Sehun with the bat, Baekhyun with her punches, Yixing with his speed and agility, and Kyungsoo with his... He'll be useful in some way or other. Jongin makes the executive decision for them. "We'll come get you."

 

 

 

 

“Okay," Jongin starts, as they huddle close with their heads together. "Here's the plan: we're about to go fuck shit up."

 

"That's what I like to hear," Yixing grins.

 

"Yeah, no doubt, 'cos that's what you did by not letting me go to my pregnant," _punch_ , "wife."

 

"WE WILL RETALIATE,” Jongin whisper-yells, interrupting their bickering. “WITH FIRE AND FURY.”

 

As they disperse, Jongin once again takes in his team. Sehun will have to go through first, with his bat, it would be ideal - as much as he doesn't want Sehun to lead them, for his safety, he also refuses to hand the bat over to anyone else. Yixing says he's got his own secret weapon, whatever that means; Jongin positions him Second. Still unsure of what exactly Kyungsoo is good at apart from the occasional snide comment, he'll remain in the middle, while Baekhyun with her fists and Jongin with his long legs will be able to cover them from behind.

 

They put on dust masks over their mouths, and cellophane over their hands, and spray a little bit of Baekhyun's perfume on their bodies.

 

Sehun has his hand on the door handle, when-

 

"Wait!" Yixing bends down to tie his shoelaces again. Kyungsoo immediately plops down to help him out, just in case he needs it, and Baekhyun takes a seat.

 

Sehun closes his eyes and counts to ten. Once he opens his eyes - yep, they're still on the ground. He looks through the glass door at the carriage. It's not completely full - they'll definitely be able to take them, but it makes him understand the gravity of their situation; it only just dawns on him. They're really about to rush into a whole compartment and fight a bunch of Furries. What a way to spend the first day of being 24. He looks back, and notices Jongin staring intently at him. For the first time, neither of them look away.

 

2017 really is the year of realising things.

 

His view of Jongin is suddenly blocked out by Yixing and Kyungsoo popping up, covering his manager, the love of his life, like an eclipse. Baekhyun groans and mutters out a ' _finally, that stupid shoelace song is starting to drive me nuts, I can't wait to raise a child and teach it to them,_ ' before standing up and joining them. They finally get in formation again.

 

"Ready?"

 

He pulls the door open.

 

 

 

 

“Did you just use that fidget spinner as a throwing star?”  Kyungsoo looks at him in complete awe. Yixing just smirks back at him as the Furry stumbles backwards and falls. He pulls out another from his black hole of a pocket.

 

"Now is not the time to chit chat, guys." Jongin screams, emerging from between one of the Furries' very hairy legs, and shooting his own very long leg to kick it right in the crotch. It topples over, creating a domino effect as it takes another Furry down with it.

 

Their formation had gone whack the moment they had entered. The only person actually staying where they were supposed to was Kyungsoo, and that's only because he turned out to be pretty much be useless in this fight.

 

Sehun and Baekhyun broke their line to stand back to back.

 

“Say hello to my little friend,” Sehun rasps, the grip on his bat tightening. He channels all of his anger, and grief into the bat. He bludgeons two of the Furries in one deeply reverberating smack, and smiles down at Jongin, who is still lying on the ground. He offers his manager a hand, and pulls him up. "Might have to call me the Busan Slayer."

 

Jongin snorts.

 

“Don’t fuck with me,” Baekhyun glowers at the Furry in front of her, her hands poised in a threatening stance. She waves them around a couple of times, and the beasts fall back by a few inches at her impact. She starts to ferociously throw punches and slaps every which way. “I have the power of God AND anime on my side.”

 

For a moment, there's stillness, and the group bathes in a few seconds of victory. That is, before at least five more Furries emerge from behind the door.

 

Baekhyun loses a bit of her fighting spirit as she whimpers, and Yixing too has apparently run out of toys to throw. Only Sehun looks to be the most energetic of them, grasping at the bat and positioning it to strike, but even he too looks completely drained. The furries take a few steps forwards in unison.

 

"Must... get... the... Smoothies..." It growls.

 

Kyungsoo is the first and the fastest to act. He takes out his compact mirror, and angles it so that the reflection of the sun rays beam directly into the Furries' eyes, and starts to alternate its path between each hairy creature - and they fucking _hate_ it.

 

The Furries cover their eyes and yowl in agony before collapsing to the ground, twitching and turning before laying motionless.

 

"Fuck," Yixing murmurs. "That was _badass_."

 

"I knew you'd be useful for something," Jongin ruffles Kyungsoo's hair, who only responds by sticking his tongue out. Their second round of victory is short lived, when once again, another Furry enters through the door. Kyungsoo is ready to pull out his compact once more, when they're plunged into darkness.

 

A tunnel. They're going through a fucking tunnel.

 

The Furry must have some kind of tunnel vision, because the dark doesn't deter it at all. In fact, it's sense of smell only seems to have heightened in the absence of its sight.

 

Sehun screams as he's pulled by his arm into an awaiting embrace, but before his back can come into contact with the Furry's front, a series of loud thumps are heard and the uncomfortably fuzzy grip on Sehun's arm is released. An even more deafening thud indicates the fall of the Furry.

 

They're bathed in once again in light as they resurface from within the tunnel, and they are able to see the sight of their saviour.

 

" _Junmyeon_ ," Yixing sags in relief.

 

"Wait- did you... Did you use your potatoes to slingshot the Furry?" Kyungsoo questions. His mouth drops open as he looks between Junmyeon and Yixing and laughs. "You guys are _totally_ brothers."

 

" _Totally_ brothers, I said it first!" Chanyeol appears from behind Junmyeon.

 

"Yeah," Junmyeon looks at Yixing, giving him a small smile. "We're definitely brothers."

 

Chanyeol hops over the Furry floor to envelope Kyungsoo in a bear hug - the non-Furry kind; at the same time Baekhyun moves over the bodies to get to the bathroom, where her wives have stayed put.

 

Sehun completely relaxes, going boneless against Jongin's back. "I thought I was going to turn," he whispers to him.

 

"As your manager," Jongin manoeuvres him around so that they face each other, "I forbid you from doing that."

 

"You act like such a dad," Sehun laughs.

 

"If that's what you're into," Jongin says casually, and that seems to shut him up completely. The atmosphere becomes static between them, as they share another long moment of just staring at each other.

 

"That's," Sehun coughs, the first to break the silence. "I might be into that, yeah."

 

Jongin doesn't know how to compute this information, not that he should even be surprised with the way Sehun has been dropping hints, but he’s never having seen himself as 'Daddy material', so he decides to store it away in his brain for another day. For now, he pulls Sehun closer to him by his shoulders and places a long-awaited, much anticipated kiss on the lips.

 

Vivi prances up to Sehun and Jongin, completely unbothered.

 

In the bathroom, Zitao feels brave enough to ask: "so, when you ladies kiss, is it like a three-way kinda kiss?"

 

Minseok, Jongdae and Baekhyun all spritz him at the same time.

 

 

 

 

“ _What’s the password?_ ” Comes the conductor's voice from the other side.

 

Jongdae hangs her head in a mix of pain and embarrassment, and murmurs, “It’s… covfefe.” The door sliding open is both satisfying and confusing.

 

"What's that all about?" Yixing asks from the back.

 

"Well, it turned out all that the Furries would say is something along the lines of ' _Smoothies_ ', which is apparently what they call us, because, uh, we have no fur?" comes Junmyeon's reply. Unbeknownst to anyone, one of Junmyeon's potatoes wedges itself between the door and the frame, leaving it open, ever so slightly. "So they came up with a nonsensical name to weed out the actual humans."

 

"And the Furries have actually tried a password?" Yixing directs his questions at the conductor. Jinyoung, this time.

 

"Well, not yet. But you can never be too safe!" he explains, as the group enters into a much safer compartment. There's only a handful of people in there; the last remaining survivors from the entire ordeal. Including _Yangsuk_.

 

 _Seriously, that guy has nine lives_ , Sehun thinks to himself, avoiding the talent agent's gaze.

 

It's too late.

 

" _You_." It comes out as a hiss. Yangsuk looks a little ridiculous without his signature hat, but all the more intimidating, still. He gets into Sehun's personal space and regards him from head to toe. He definitely remembers Sehun's rejection all those years back.

 

Then, he smirks.

 

_This can't be good._

 

"These people are infected!" Yangsuk proclaims. The people who have been in the carriage with him, the survivors, are so on edge that they are ready to believe anything he says a this point. But he goes on anyway, pointing at Jongin's leg where his trousers had torn off during the fight. "Look at this man's leg! No one's leg can be that hairy!"

 

Immediately, the carriage is drowned in shouts of exile, as they attempt to isolate the newcomer from them. Sehun steps in front of Jongin, angry eyebrows shushing them all immediately.

 

"You're not going to throw him back out there."

 

After a beat of silence, Yangsuk speaks up again. "Then you can all go together."

 

The survivors hum in agreement, and Sehun takes in the fleeting look of fear that passes across the faces of his newfound friends.

 

"I don't think that's very... fair," conductor Jinyoung speaks up. Several heads turn towards him in utter disbelief. "While I think it would be best if they are kept separate to us, we shouldn't be sending them back out _there_." He gestures behind him with his head. "There's a vestibule up ahead. It's clear."

 

 _The next vestibule up ahead? Further away from the Furries and the danger?_ , Sehun thinks.

 

"Sure."

 

"Yes."

 

"Yeah, okay."

 

“The _next_ one? Fine with me.”

 

It seems that almost all of them have the same idea. They start moving past the survivors, with Vivi leading them, and a very smug looking Yangsuk looking on at they trail into the new, empty compartment.

 

"Is that guy stupid, or?" Jongdae starts. Everyone just chuckles, too content at being reunited with each other and being a whole carriage away from the imminent threat of turning into a giant Furry to care that they'd essentially been exiled by the dumbest person alive.

 

"Did you know that Yangsuk was caught colluding with MNet?" Sehun says conspiratorially to Jongin. "I heard him talk to his lawyers about it on the phone."

 

"Is that so? Then he's an even bigger snake than we initially thought." Jongin pulls him close and rests his head on Sehun's collarbone. It’s not like any of that stuff even matters anymore. The numbers, and the ratings, the irritating superiors and the secrets and lies. All that can be put behind them.

 

Jongin peeks from under the broad chest to see that everyone else is also snuggling up to their loved ones. Even Zitao, for all his new life's purpose to live in isolation has found a companion in Vivi (who would do anything for attention).

 

The train shakes a little in turbulence, and the lights flicker out again. They've gone under another tunnel.

 

From the carriage behind them, the one they'd left mere moments ago, they hear terrified screams, and more sniffing.

 

 

 

 

**Destination: BUSAN (Fucking Finally, LMAO)**

 

It's not even a gradual stop. The train comes to a very abrupt halt, very suddenly, like someone had paused a simulation of a rollercoaster right at the dip. The last remaining passengers are almost thrown off balance.

 

_Ding!_

 

" _Well, folks. It seems like this is the end of the road for us._ "

 

"What, we're in Busan already?" Yixing asks the voice in the air with a sense of total disbelief.

 

_"And no, we are not in Busan yet. It’s still like, five miles ahead. Which I have actually touched base with: and good news! The actual military really is there this time! But, it seems like the track ahead of us has literally been blocked off. By a whole line of the... Fur-things."_

 

"Welp. That can't be good," Jongdae mutters.

 

" _It seems like we will have to either find an alternate means of transportation, or we'll have to wait it out. Neither option is looking too good right now. Actually, let me step outside for a moment."_

 

"Please don't," Minseok pleads.

 

The captain continues to speak through the intercom, but it sounds a bit softer, and further away. _"I think if I run fast enough, I'll be able to. Oh- Oh no. Dear god they are staring right at me. Oh no- no, no!_ "

 

_Dong!_

 

"Did we, um, just lose our driver?" Kyungsoo questions meekly.

 

No one is ready for the answer to that question as it strolls past their carriage. A Furry wearing the proud uniform of a train driver.

 

“What the fuck are we supposed to do now?” Chanyeol groans.

 

“Are we just, stuck here?” Baekhyun flaps her arms around in distress.

 

“I guess we’re just going to die,” Zitao adds with a shrug of his shoulders.

 

The voices blend together in a panicked symphony. No one has even a semblance of solution out of this mess, as everyone’s bubbles of contentment burst and they descend into chaos. Everyone’s, except for Junmyeon’s.

 

“I have had it,” he hisses in a tone that commands attention from everyone in the compartment, “with these motherfucking Furries on this motherfucking train.”

 

“Whoa,” Sehun whistles.

 

“Shit,” Yixing gasps. “He actually swore.”

 

“So here’s what we’re going to do.” The group looks up at him with rapt attentiveness, and even admiration (mostly from Yixing). “We need to figure out how the hell we’re going to get those Furries out of the way so we can get this thing going to Busan–“

 

“You mean you don’t have a plan figured out for us already?” Jongin asks incredulously.

 

“Hey, hey. Look at me.” Junmyeon stares straight at Jongin, and his usually angelic gaze is somehow fiercer that Sehun’s eyebrows. He points to himself with two fingers. “I’m the captain now.”

 

“Alright boss,” Jongin concedes.

 

“Do you have any suggestions?” Jongdae inquires in her usual, gentle tone.

 

“Um, well. Actually, to be honest I was kinda just hoping that if I stepped up into the leadership role, one or more of you might get inspired and come up with a plan or something.”

 

“Nice one, Il Capitano.” Zitao says as he leans his head back on his arms and closes his eyes. He has had enough; he is really ready to become a fur thing today.

 

Junmyeon sags in disappointment at the reaction. He knows in his heart that he was born to be a leader; in a parallel universe, he has no doubts that he would be. Guess in this universe, they are all just meant to be Furries.

 

Sehun’s head falls on Jongin’s lap, and Jongin’s brushes his fingers through the dark strands as if he was petting Vivi. The actual puppy continues to wander around, settling down with anyone who would spare him a belly rub or two.

 

It’s not absolutely quiet. There’s the sound of non stop sniffing coming from outside the train, there’s the sound of their heavy breathing, but now, there’s something else. Something familiar. Sehun sits up so fast he nearly knocks heads with Jongin (he’d rather be knocking their _other_ heads, and in a different environment). The sound gradually increases in volume, the train floors shaking with the pumping bass and Sehun looks at Jongin in confusion.

 

“Is that my _song_?”

 

Jongin and Sehun and the rest of them scramble up in a heap to rush to the window. Off in the distance, and gradually getting closer is what looks like…

 

A monster truck.

 

“No way,” Jongin and Sehun exclaim in unison.

 

The truck is close enough now that they can all hear Sehun belting his powerful and meaningful lyrics: SHAWTY IMMA PARTY TIL THE SUNDOWN~

 

“Hey!” Junmyeon hollers from the other side of the vestibule. “The Furries are leaving. I think they’re repulsed by the music.”

 

“What the _fuck_?” Sehun pushes himself off the window and walks towards Junmyeon, who holds his hands up in front of him in alarm. “No what did you say dude? Step the fu-”

 

“Hey, I’m just-“

 

“Okay, okay,” Jongdae and Baekhyun step in to separate them.

 

In the meantime, Jongin can’t believe that _this_ man, the very same man who has consistently cost his company (ex-company) so much money on bad deals, and expensive recycling schemes, is truly going to be their hero: A Lee Sooman Ex Machina.

 

“None of you would happen to know how to drive a train would you?”

 

As it turns out, four of them did.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the ting goes skkkkKRAT


End file.
